12 Days
by T'Pring
Summary: When Sheppard is trapped 48,000 years in the future, 12 days go by on Atlantis. During that time, Rodney and Ronon must search for clues to Sheppard's disappearance while also continuing the hunt for Teyla...without killing each other in the process.
1. Day 1

A/N: Welcome to 12 Days. As I post this first chapter, it is now twelve days before the premiere of Season 5. To help survive this painfully Stargate-free time, I have decided to re-enact the twelve days that Sheppard was missing while trapped 48,000 years in the future. The Last Man recounts Sheppard's side of the story, I thought I'd tell Atlantis' side of that missing time - in particular, as Sheppard's disappearance affects McKay and Ronon.

In addition, I humbly offer this story as my fullfillment of Trishkafibble's request for a "Rodney and Ronon" story as winner of my 300th Blood is Thicker review prize. I hope it is worthy of at least a few moments of entertainment for you.

The story and the chapters will unfold over the next 12 days, to be finished Thursday night or Friday morning before Season 5 airs. (I'm not promising a chapter every day, though, heh.) Honestly, this may not make for a great story, but it sounded fun to try, so I simply ask you to: Enjoy!

**12 Days**

_"So, how'd it go, sir?" Lorne strolled over to meet his commander who was approaching the Stargate with lazy steps. Sheppard just kept walking, pausing only when he'd reached the DHD. The rest of Lorne's team were milling around in a standard perimeter formation, looking as bored as Sheppard did._

_"The Genii contact didn't show up," Sheppard said with matter-of-fact nonchalance._

_"Can't say I'm surprised." Lorne grinned as Sheppard adopted an expression of mock surprise._

_"What are you saying, Major? The Genii can't be trusted?"_

_"Well, they did try and kill you and Doctor McKay along with that little girl."_

_"True, true – and normally that's the kind of thing I'd take personally, but Ladon claims he didn't order the hit. He's trying to get on our good side."_

_Lorne nodded, still amused. "You really think they know anything about where Michael took Teyla?"_

___"Well, they get solid intel. We're following up every lead, no matter how thin."_

___Lorne sighed noncommittally. "OK. So what do you wanna do?"_

___By way of answer, Sheppard shifted his P-90 and began punching at the DHD, looking at the Stargate as the familiar lights began to chase around its ornate ring. "I'm gonna go ahead. You stay behind for a few hours, tell me if he shows up."_

_____"Will do."_

_____The Stargate kawooshed as the last symbol engaged. Sheppard shifted his weapon to ready status again, then pivoted towards the flickering puddle that would whisk him home. Before he completed a first step, though, he tilted his head at Lorne, fixed him with a steady look._

_______"We're gonna find her, Major," he said, his voice firm, reassuring._

_______"Yes, sir."_

_______As Sheppard stepped into the 'gate with the casual confidence he'd come to expect from his CO, Lorne just almost believed him. If anyone could find Teyla, Sheppard could._

**Day 1**

As it happened, Rodney McKay was in the Control Room when Lorne's team returned from M4S-587. As soon as Chuck announced Lorne's IDC, Rodney stood up, fired off a last burst of keystrokes, slapped his laptop closed, then turned towards the stairs. The idle chatter of the returning soldiers filled the sparkling Stargate's landing platform as he descended. Rodney scanned the crowd for Sheppard's signature dark hair and "I'm home" slouch, then frowned slightly as the gurgling wormhole collapsed into silence.

"Major, when is Sheppard coming back? A lead came in from the Athosians this morning and he'll want to see it before he packs his gear up." Sheppard wasn't one to dilly-dally on new information, and Rodney suspected he might turn right around and head back through the 'gate. Lorne, however, just shrugged.

"The meeting was a bust. Sheppard came back a couple of hours ago. Go look him up in the duty room."

"No, he didn't."

"He didn't what?"

"He didn't come back two hours ago. I've been in the control room all morning."

Lorne seemed to be stifling a sigh as he reached for his radio earpiece. "Colonel Sheppard, this is Lorne returning from 587. Come in, please."

"I could have done that," Rodney muttered. Lorne's expression shifted from annoyed to puzzled as he apparently received no reply.

"Colonel Sheppard, come in, please." He waved his hands in unconcerned resignation. "Maybe he's in the gym, doesn't have his radio on."

"No. He's not here, Major. I told you, he hasn't come in yet."

"I saw him dial the 'gate and leave M4S-587 two hours ago."

"So where'd he go?"

"He went HERE."

"No, he didn't."

"Yes, he did."

"No, he didn't."

"Yes, he –." Lorne cut himself off and waved the rest of his team off the platform to hit the locker room. "Let's go check the logs, McKay."

Rodney followed Lorne back up the stairs to the control room. A tiny voice of concern was starting to speak to Rodney's conscience. It wasn't like Lorne to pull this kind of prank, and if the Major truly thought Sheppard should be here…

Lorne acted as if it was Rodney who was messing around and had the air of someone humoring a soon to be proven wrong idiot. He walked right up to the 'gate technician on duty and slapped him on his back to get his attention.

"Chuck, pull up the 'gate logs. Find out when Sheppard 'gated home this morning."

"I don't think Colonel Sheppard has checked in since he left with you, Major." Chuck answered with some surprise. "You aren't together?" There was a moment of silent tension.

"Just check the logs, Chuck," Rodney urged watching Lorne apprehensively. The Major had gone tight-jawed and pale. _Not pulling a prank_, Rodney decided, and that niggling concern grew into a lump of anxiety. They both remained silent as Chuck tapped away at the computer.

"Nope. No 'gate activations at all since 0800 when your team left. Is there a problem?"

Rodney ignored the question and just looked at Lorne. The Major was shaking his head. "I saw him leave 587 two hours and 13 minutes ago. The Genii contact didn't show, and Colonel Sheppard left us to wait for another couple of hours, in case the guy came late. He said he was returning to Atlantis. I saw him leave!"

"And then he didn't show up here," Rodney murmured. His mind began to race into solutions mode. "The first thing to do is to confirm that Sheppard still isn't back on 587-"

"He's not there," Lorne interrupted. "We were on the planet for two hours after he left. I'm sure he's not there."

"I believe you, but we still need to confirm objectively. Can you arrange for a jumper recon team to return as soon as possible?" Lorne just nodded and turned stiffly away towards a console, his finger already in his ear to relay instructions. Rodney watched him with concern for a moment, then turned back to the curious technician.

"Chuck, get Sam and Ronon up here. And yes: I think there's a problem." He looked at Lorne again. Maybe a big one.

* * *

"Ok, let's think this through."

Rodney watched Sam Carter scrub her eyes, then rest her chin on folded hands. She sat slouched at her desk. Ronon was perched on one corner looking wary. Lorne sat in the soft chair opposite Sam, still dressed in his offworld uniform, although he'd ditched the P-90 and tactical vest. Rodney was in the other chair, his tablet computer on his lap.

"Sheppard left 587 at 1100 hours. At 1300 hours, Lorne's team returned and we realized that Sheppard had never arrived. Sheppard's not still on 587 –."

"Confirmed by the recon team, by the way," Rodney interrupted.

"We have no 'gate activations during that missing time, or since, so we aren't dealing with a 'gate malfunction. There was no surge of energy at the source that could have caused the wormhole to jump." Sam trailed off.

"So where is he?" Ronon shifted restlessly.

"That's what we're trying to figure out," Rodney snapped, annoyed at the obvious question even though, deep down, he realized that Ronon was really asking for action, pushing the conversation towards solutions. Rodney usually had the patience to recognize that. OK, he sometimes had the patience to recognize it. Especially when Sheppard was hovering over him, ready to rein in Rodney's temper with calming snark. The lack of a Sheppardesque rebuke at that moment illuminated Sheppard's absence with painful clarity. Rodney rushed on to shake off the sudden feeling of unease. "If we're ruling out malfunction, which I haven't yet, then the next best explanation is misdial."

Lorne looked up and spoke for the first time since his initial debriefing. "You think Sheppard dialed a wrong number?"

"It's at least one possibility."

"If he dialed a wrong number, why didn't he just turn around and dial the right one?" Ronon had a bit of an edge in his voice, too, and Rodney bristled further.

"If we knew THAT, we'd know where he was, now wouldn't we?"

Lorne and Ronon scowled at the statement that seemed perfectly obvious to Rodney, but Sam at least turned thoughtful. "You think Sheppard dialed a wrong number, then stumbled into some trouble, unable to dial out again?"

"I think that's our best hypothesis at the moment. I'll go back to 587 and run a diagnostic on the DHD to rule out any problems that might account for Sheppard's disappearance. I'll pull the 'gate addresses it has in its buffer too. It won't tell us the order they were dialed, or how many times each one was dialed, but it will give us a starting place to search."

"You want to search all the addresses in the buffer?" Sam's voice was carefully skeptical.

"Hopefully we won't have to search them all. We can sort by similarity, try the addresses that are only a few symbols different, first."

"And if we don't find him at those addresses, we will search them all." Lorne spoke a little too fiercely and everyone turned to look at him. Sam cocked her head.

"You aren't assuming responsibility here, are you Major?"

"No, ma'am. Well, not exactly. I mean Colonel Sheppard was with me just before he walked through that 'gate and then, poof! He's gone. I just feel like…" Lorne looked away quickly and Rodney saw his fists clench.

"You feel like there's something you should have done, even though we still don't even know what really happened," Sam prodded.

"Yes, ma'am."

"Save it for your bunk, Major." Rodney saw Lorne blink in surprise just before he, too, turned to Sam in astonishment. He'd never heard Sam speak so brusquely.

"Ma'am?"

"Until Colonel Sheppard is found or returns, you are acting base commander. You don't have time for pity or 'what ifs'. You have a job to do. That includes running this post, continuing ongoing investigations, AND assisting in the search for Colonel Sheppard who I am, as of this moment, classifying as missing."

"Yes, ma'am." Lorne answered crisply enough, but Rodney thought he still sounded frustrated.

"Good. And Major? We will search every address on that list if we have to. Just like we will follow every lead we have in finding Teyla." Sam finally allowed a smile onto her lips. "I was in Colonel Sheppard's shoes once. Went missing after a routine dive through the 'gate under fire. Took days for Stargate Command to figure out where we were and how to rescue us. But they did. And so will we."

Lorne looked convinced at last. Sam waved him off. "Go prep a team to escort McKay back to 587, then start familiarizing yourself with Sheppard's current projects."

Once Lorne had left, the bounce back in his stride, Rodney stood up and tucked his computer under his arm. He was about to leave himself, but hesitated when Ronon twisted around and cocked his head at Sam.

"What happened when you went missing? Could the same thing have happened to Sheppard?" Sam shook her head.

"No. That happened when the Stargate took fire after my team entered the wormhole. Two of us made it home, myself and Colonel – now General – O'Neill were sent to another nearby Stargate when the wormhole jumped. It was a hell of a ride. O'Neill was badly injured when we were flung out at the new location."

"No one was firing at the gate when Sheppard dialed out. The wormhole wouldn't jump in a stable situation," Rodney added, feeling himself impatient with Ronon again.

"But maybe something we don't know about could have made the wormhole jump. Crazy stuff happens all the time around here. We should also search nearby Stargates." Ronon stood up and thumped his fist on Sam's desk as he spoke the last, as if trying to convince her of his opinion with intimidation. Rodney beat her to a reply.

"That would be a colossal waste of time. It wasn't the wormhole so –."

"Carter just said that when the wormhole threw her to the wrong gate, she went missing. Sounds pretty similar to me."

"It would! But those of us who actually know what we're talking about know that since there is no way for a wormhole to jump without a surge -."

"No way that we know of! Seems as likely as Sheppard dialing the wrong number."

"The laws of physics are infinitely more reasonable. Human error is by far the most likely explanation here."

"McKay if you -!"

"Gentlemen!"

Sam bellowed the word, interrupting the argument long enough for Rodney to realize that he was standing toe to toe with Ronon who was towering over him with a snarl on his lips. Rodney quickly backpedaled three steps and crossed his arms over his chest, still holding the computer.

"I know this situation is unsettling. But as the remaining members of Sheppard's team, I'm depending on you to work together to spearhead the search for the Colonel. Lorne won't be happy, but I want him concentrating on Teyla." She fixed Rodney with a piercing look. "McKay, Ronon's right that we can't rule anything out at the moment, and we'll start searching nearby gates if the list from 587s buffer doesn't turn anything up."

"But, Sam," Rodney began, shocked that she seemed to be taking Ronon's side. And that comment about being the "last remaining" team members had jolted him a bit too. Sam cut him off, however and fixed her glare on Ronon next.

"Ronon, McKay is right that we should prioritize the most reasonable explanations first, then expand our assumptions. We won't close any doors without checking behind them, but Rodney will call the shots on what is and isn't the most technically realistic."

Ronon just cocked his hip and tilted his head. Sam didn't smile.

"Good! Now get going. I need Sheppard back here. There's too much going on right now, and Sheppard was gaining some momentum on finding Michael. I don't like thinking about what Michael's got in mind for Teyla and her baby, and Teyla's time is running out." She sat down, propped her elbows and scrubbed her eyes again. Rodney and Ronon just stood there until she looked at them again. Her expression was fierce.

"We all need him back here," she said.


	2. Day 2

**Day 2**

Ronon paced the corridors of Atlantis until pale streaks of sunlight began to catch in the wispy high clouds to the East. He'd slept restlessly, when he'd been sleeping at all. At 0500, Atlantis military time, he'd given up and started walking the hallways and breezeways. The exercise had done little to quiet the sense of foreboding in his gut, so he at last turned towards the commissary. He would have breakfast, then force Lorne and McKay to include him in whatever operations were taking place that day, he decided. Even guard duty as McKay tinkered would be better than sitting on his holster in an empty city.

It was empty here without Sheppard. It had been cold already, without Teyla.

Ronon quickly tied one of his long braids around the others to keep them out of his face, then piled food on his tray. His feet found their way to his usual table, and he had set his things down and pulled out the chair before it hit that it was unlikely anyone would join him today. McKay was still on 587, messing with the DHD as far as he knew, and Teyla and Sheppard were…gone.

Ronon paused for a heartbeat, then sat in the chair anyway. He shoved the tray and silverware around perhaps a bit too roughly, then began to eat as quickly as he could. He was so engrossed in getting through the meal and on to something useful that he didn't hear McKay until another tray plopped down beside him, followed by two mugs of coffee, both filled – steaming – to the brim.

"I thought you were on 587."

"Got back late last night." Ronon stopped chewing to fix an annoyed look at McKay.

"You were supposed to tell me when you got in."

"I was going to, but Lorne said you'd already turned in. Besides, all I did was start running the addresses we downloaded from 587 through the database, and wrote some code to sort by most likely misdials. It'll take all morning to finish crunching the data. I didn't see any point in waking you."

"Oh."

Ronon shifted in his seat, took another few bites. McKay yawned, then downed one of his cups of coffee in a single, long gulp. For several minutes, they sat, shoulder to shoulder, eating in awkward silence. Two empty chairs stared back at them from across the table.

"So what do we do after we get the data back?" Ronon finally spoke.

"Hmm? Oh. We see which addresses come up to the top of the list and start sending 'gate teams through."

"Good. I don't like sitting around. The sooner we rule out this "Sheppard misdialed" _stanga_, the sooner we can get on to finding out where he actually is." Rodney's sigh was a bit exaggerated, Ronon thought.

"I took the DHD on 587 apart and put it back together again, yesterday. There was nothing wrong with it. There was NOTHING on that entire planet to suggest that a malfunction of any type was responsible for Sheppard going missing."

"I still don't buy it."

"Because you're a Stargate physicist now, I suppose."

"Because I've seen Sheppard dial addresses hundreds of times. I've seen him do it under fire in the dark and still hit every key. Because it doesn't make any damn sense that Sheppard, of all people, would hit a wrong key in broad daylight under friendly conditions." Ronon shoved his tray away from him and leaned back in his chair. He crossed his arms.

"You have a point," McKay admitted grudgingly, poking at his eggs with a fork. Ronon pressed his case.

"Even if I did think it was possible, I'd grant you one key, maybe. More than one?" He twisted his palm into the tabletop in a Satedan gesture for dismissive disbelief. Sheppard had told him once that it looked like he was squashing a bug.

Rodney bobbed his head for a moment, then abruptly began shoving food into his mouth again. "I'll tell Lorne that we don't plan to search very far down the list. If Sheppard's not on a world with only one, maybe two keys off, then we need to start looking for other places to look."

Ronon tapped his foot for a long moment as he studied McKay. "Like where?" He was rather surprised that the man had taken his advice so easily. Usually, disagreements between them went to Sheppard for arbitration. Yesterday, Carter had to step in.

McKay froze, a forkful of egg an inch away from his lips. Rodney saw him close his eyes briefly.

"I have no idea."

* * *

"There's only two addresses?" Rodney watched Lorne shake his head in rejection. They stood gathered in Carter's office again, although the Colonel herself was in another part of the city. Ronon sat perched on the edge of the desk as usual. "That's not good enough, McKay."

"No! It's very good, see? Ronon's right that Sheppard wouldn't miss more than one or two keys if we're dealing with misdial. This disqualifies most of the list we downloaded. And we don't have any information about these two planets in the Ancient database."

"That's bad?" Ronon asked.

"No, again. That's good. It means that at least we're not back to square one. Unknown is better than known and unlikely."

"Not a lot better," Ronon grumbled, but he didn't argue. Rodney turned back to Lorne. However the Major felt about how the list had been sorted, Rodney knew the man wouldn't refuse to send teams to any address he suggested. Lorne finally just shrugged.

"Send the MALP, McKay. Ronon, you can pick two marines to fill out your team. Carter wants my team to check out a lead on Teyla this afternoon, so you're on your own."

"Ronon's team?" Rodney realized that he hadn't heard anything after the words "your team." Ronon looked similarly surprised.

"Carter's orders. Ronon is to take command of Sheppard's Team until he returns or is assigned permanently. Any ideas on who you want, yet?"

"Anderson and Corrigan," Ronon answered slowly. Lorne smiled slightly.

"You don't mess around, do you? You got 'em. I'll have them report to you ASAP. In the meantime, I've got to go gear up my team." He shot one last glower at Rodney, then left. Rodney waited until Lorne was gone then cocked his head at Ronon.

"So. You're in command. Of Sheppard's Team." Rodney didn't quite know how to follow that statement. For some reason, some small part of him was arrogantly jealous that he hadn't been tapped to lead Atlantis' premier gate team. Not that he had time to do so, or even the inclination, actually - too many decisions and not enough glory. Ronon was a good choice and all, but still; it would have been nice if Carter had talked to him first about it, gotten his recommendations…

"No. I'm not." Ronon's gruff retort snapped Rodney out of his speculation.

"You're not?"

"It's not Sheppard's team without Sheppard."

"A matter of semantics, I suppose but –."

"It's not just words McKay. On Sateda, if a commander of a unit was killed, the unit was disbanded. It's bad luck to take a commander's place. And…it's disrespectful."

Rodney's quip about superstitious bunk froze on his lips as the last came out quiet and uncertain. "Disrespectful? Of what? To whom?" That part made less sense than the superstitious part.

"To Sheppard. I don't deserve his place." The self doubt on Ronon's face was downright disgusting. Rodney chuffed in exasperation.

"If you're saying you can't replace Sheppard, then, no kidding! There IS no one like Sheppard, at least for getting me and the rest of this expedition into and out of trouble on a disturbingly regular basis. However, if you were paying attention at all to what Lorne said, you'll remember that it was Carter who put you in command. If she did it, you deserve it. What you or anyone else calls it IS just words."

Rodney suddenly realized that he had been reassuring Ronon. And _that _was the truly confusing part. He decided to reassert his own authority and put his new team leader in the proper mindset. It wouldn't do to have Ronon thinking too highly of himself…whatever he'd just told the man. Rodney would have to keep Ronon on as tight a chain as Sheppard, if not more so.

"I'll go prep the MALP and send it through to the first address while you brief Anderson and Corrigan. When you're geared up, you can decide whether to go and search or just send the MALP back for a look at the second address."

"I'll have Anderson warm up a jumper," Ronon agreed. He sounded a bit happier.

The first address led to a standard-issue Stargate on the sunny side of an average looking planet. The MALP trundled out into a large, grassy meadow and collected images of nothing but blue sky and pretty little white flowers – and a perfectly functional DHD twenty feet from the gate.

Ronon took Corrigan through to scan for anything unusual that might obviously explain why someone gating there might be prevented from leaving, then turned the MALP around and drove it right back to Atlantis. Rodney waved him over to the monitor as he called up the second address.

"Sheppard wasn't there," Ronon said as he drew close. "There weren't any recent tracks around the gate or the DHD."

"Well, it couldn't be that easy, could it?" Rodney snapped, disappointed at the quick failure despite his own comment. "Watch the monitor. The MALP will be at the second address any second."

Rodney fidgeted as the image from the MALP's camera hissed with static, then abruptly cleared with their first image of the new world. He caught a brief impression of endless sky, then unconsciously ducked his head as the angle tilted downwards. Sky blurred into choppy grey sea. The image kept scrolling. Water changed into dark, brown-green rock, then rock flicked to sky. Water, rock, sky, water, rock, sky. The picture repeated the pattern three graceful times, then went black.

Rodney looked at Ronon.

"It fell," Ronon said.

"That's the understatement of the day; it fell off a cliff. Three rotations at an initial velocity of, what?, three miles per hour. That makes at least 1000 feet, maybe 1500. Some fall! The ocean must have eroded the shoreline right to the edge of the Stargate. The DHD is probably at the bottom of the cliff along with the MALP."

Ronon shifted restlessly then jabbed a finger at the blank monitor. "If Sheppard walked out there –."

"He wouldn't be able to dial back," Rodney said firmly. He couldn't stand the alternative and pushed aside horrifying images of Sheppard lying crumpled on a rocky beach below the Stargate a thousand feet down. Ronon seemed to accept the optimism.

"Right. McKay, is the Stargate stable enough to send a jumper through? The jumper can dial back, even if the DHD is gone."

"We have no way of telling. The MALP never got a shot of the gate, so -"

"We'll risk it. Gear up and join us in the jumper bay." Ronon turned on his heel and was already taking his first step when Rodney hastily called him back. He forced down a sudden jolt of annoyance as it hit him that Sheppard usually waited until he'd had Rodney's technical signoff before he walked away. Not that Sheppard would always take Rodney's advice, but he usually listened to it. Sheppard knew he was supposed to listen.

"Hang on just a minute already. _So, _even if the Stargate is stable enough to send a jumper through once, without knowing its situation, we have to assume it might not be stable enough to get us back home. We need to take the grappling gear and an extra couple of pairs of hands to secure, or move, the Stargate to a safe foundation."

Ronon just shrugged. "We won't be there long. Sheppard's either there, or he isn't."

"He's either there, or we spend the next two days searching that ocean for him."

"McKay –."

"Look, I don't like it any more than you do, but right now, the most likely scenario is that Sheppard accidentally gated to that planet and fell off the cliff. I, for one, won't sleep well at night until we've exhausted all our search options and found his…I mean found him, or are pretty darn convinced he was never there." Rodney's voice shook as he very nearly spoke his own worst fear out loud. Ronon just looked away and glared at something across the control room. Rodney fiddled with the edge of his jacket, waiting for Ronon's response.

"Pick your men, McKay. If Sheppard isn't standing there waving at us, we'll secure the Stargate and begin search and rescue."

Rodney smiled at the hope Ronon had managed to squeeze into his statement, but Ronon was already halfway up the stairs to the jumper bay and didn't see it. With a sigh, Rodney called up the list of technicians who had experience at moving or setting up Stargates and called the two on duty to gear up. Then he headed to the lockers to get himself ready for offworld, telling himself that they'd "lost" Sheppard before, and the man had always managed to find a way home, usually even without their help.

But as he tugged on his jacket, and shrugged into the heavy tactical vest, Rodney couldn't help glancing at Sheppard's closed locker, two doors down from his. If Sheppard wasn't standing there waving at them on that planet, then Rodney didn't think there was much hope to be had.


	3. Day 4

**Day 4**

Sheppard wasn't waving at them. He wasn't there at all.

It had taken two days of excruciating, tedious searching, crammed into a jumper with sensors straining to the limits of sensitivity to convince McKay of the fact, but in the end, even the thoroughly pessimistic Sergeant O'Riley, search and rescue specialist, agreed that Sheppard wasn't on the planet.

Ronon could have told them that after the first thirty minutes. The Stargate had been situated on the very edge of the cliff, a mere two feet from a 1,223 foot drop. But the edge had been sturdy. It did not crumble even when Ronon knelt at the lip and studied the ground carefully. Certainly, two days had passed, and the MALP had trundled its way over the small patch of rock, but Ronon was certain he would have seen something, some sign of passage, some evidence of a struggle had Sheppard found himself _there._

Ronon didn't need the visual survey, nor the biometric sensor array, nor the grueling scramble along the rocky beach at the bottom of the cliff to know that Sheppard had never set foot on the planet. Not really. Maybe only a little. But the others from Atlantis did need the proof, and Ronon gritted his teeth and endured it, all the while listening with part of the back of his mind for a call from Carter that Sheppard had reappeared as mysteriously as he'd disappeared and they could return. It was only partially as nerve-racking as listening for the half-expected communication that Sheppard's body had been found, floating peacefully among the waves out to sea.

The recall never came. Sheppard wasn't found, and Ronon was tired. Not physically – he'd done nothing but sit and look at screens for 48 hours – but weary in his bones, in his very soul. He knew enough about loss to realize that it was the lethargy of grief that was tugging at him, but he shoved the melancholy aside, and walked to the locker room with the rest of his team, planning to set out tomorrow for whatever task was required next to track his friend down.

"What a nightmare," McKay groaned, sitting on the bench a few lockers away as Ronon padded back from a long shower. The rest had already left. McKay was staring at the floor as if he didn't have the energy to even open the locker door. He scrubbed his face and looked up as Ronon flung his towel at a laundry bin then bent to tie his shoes. "So, what's it like having your first command turn out to be a colossal failure?"

Ronon froze, and turned to stare. McKay was lucky that Ronon was tired, or he'd have thrown a punch without thinking about it. As it was, he had just long enough before getting really pissed off to see that McKay was simply curious. McKay babbled on, not seeming to even realize he'd said something provocative.

"You picked good people, at least. Anderson's a great pilot, and Corrigan will come in handy when we have some actual people to deal with. His specialty is anthropology and he's really good at talking native mumbo-jumbo."

Ronon slammed his locker door shut. "We didn't fail." Rodney looked up, surprised.

"We didn't?"

"No. Sheppard wasn't there. He was never there. He wasn't at the bottom of a cliff, so we didn't fail." Rodney snorted.

"We didn't find him."

"We didn't find him dead. Where do we look tomorrow, McKay?"

"I don't know. Lorne called a briefing first thing in the morning. Maybe he and Carter have come up with something."

"It's our job to come up with something."

"As the last remaining members of Sheppard's team. Yeah. I know." Rodney's tone was bitter and he suddenly stood up to yank his locker open, tugging at his jacket in sudden agitation. Ronon watched him for a second, tempted to just walk out. He usually left Sheppard to manage the touchy scientist out of his funks and snits. But it suddenly hit Ronon that _he_ was team leader, at least for the moment. It fell to him to sort out McKay's baffling behavior.

"McKay, it's only temporary. We'll find Sheppard." McKay just kept tugging off his gear.

"You sound just like him."

"Who?"

"Sheppard," McKay spat, then turned his back on Ronon to hop on one foot as he untied a boot.

"That's bad?"

"What if it's not temporary? What if he just doesn't come back? Our track record certainly doesn't seem to point to a Sheppard-like optimistic appraisal of the situation. We haven't found Teyla."

"We will, McKay."

"Elizabeth never came back."

"Dammit! That was different. She chose to sacrifice herself. Sheppard's come back before."

"No! The time Kolya got him was totally different. We at least knew what had happened. We had a place to start. When he was with the Travellers, he was even able to send us breadcrumbs to find him, but it's already been four days and not so much as a peep. Nor are we any closer to even understanding what happened! We just eliminated our best guess as to what might have gone wrong. We're back to square one."

Ronon opened his mouth then snapped it shut, completely confused. McKay was turning red and jabbing a boot at him as he babbled wildly. How the hell did Sheppard deal with the man when he was like this? Ronon was usually long gone by the time McKay had gotten himself worked up into this state. The thought brought sudden inspiration. Ronon grabbed the boot out of McKay's hand and tossed it into the locker.

"Want to go grab some food?"

McKay cocked his head.

"Yeah. I could eat."

* * *

They sat shoulder to shoulder in the nearly empty cafeteria, staring at the chairs across from them. One sleepy 'gate technician sat at a table in the corner staring at a laptop and idly tapping his spoon against a cup of cold coffee. Ronon had finished off his second, leftover sandwich before either of them said anything.

"So, what if it's not temporary?" McKay finally asked, sounding more like himself. At least the arrongant tone was back, Ronon decided. "You really going to keep Sheppard's team?"

"It's not Sheppard's team without Sheppard," Ronon chided mildly, then paused to think about the question. "If he doesn't come back, then… I might leave. Go somewhere else." He realized the words at the same moment he spoke them.

"Really? Where would you go?"

"Somewhere I could fight the Wraith."

"By yourself?"

"If I had to."

"But you're good at the command thing. Why not stay and fight the Wraith here?"

Ronon was amused by the compliment, and he had to admit it was a fair question. "It'd be different without Sheppard. Carter might give me a 'gate team, but Lorne would get the top spot. I don't think they'd let me in the loop like Sheppard. He trusts people." _Even when they're not from Earth, _he added privately.

"Yeah, he's like that. He doesn't worry much about politics."

"What about you, McKay?"

"What about me?"

"You ever think of leaving Atlantis?" McKay was hurting and Ronon could see him struggling with the grief that was tugging at his own shirt. He found himself curious if the self-absorbed scientist ever had the same thoughts that he did, and knew there wouldn't be another chance to ask. Midnight in the commissary made for interesting conversation, Ronon knew. He'd even gotten some stuff out of Sheppard that he knew the man would have never volunteered under any other conditions. Ronon didn't talk much, but he listened a whole damn lot.

"Leave? Are you kidding? This place would fall apart within a week if I left."

"What if you didn't care?"

"What kind of question is that?! Of course I care, I mean would care, I mean--." McKay shoved his seat around to face Ronon. "I make a difference here, there's work to be done that's important."

"What if you weren't making a difference any more?" Ronon slouched back in his seat, also turning slightly. McKay just shook his head.

"That seems unlikely. As long as the IOA supports the Atlantis project, then I'll have a place here." Ronon leaned forward, he fixed McKay with a look until the man squirmed.

"But what _if_ you didn't. What if things changed and you didn't like what was happening. What if you weren't making a difference? Would you stay, then?"

McKay just looked annoyed at the thought. Ronon nodded knowingly. "I wouldn't," he said. If Sheppard didn't come back, things would change. And the longer he stayed missing, the more Ronon felt it. It was like thunderheads gathering on the horizon, or fibers tearing on a taut rope.

McKay rolled his eyes and began gathering up his sandwich wrappers. Ronon watched him for a moment longer, then stood up. McKay didn't seem quite so panicky, and would most likely sleep in his lab for the next few hours until the meeting with Lorne.

"You should think about taking a command."

Ronon paused at the words, puzzled. McKay looked up at him with haughty appraisal. "If you feel like you can't make a difference on a 'gate team, you should find a way to make a difference before you just leave. If Sheppard really is…gone, then Atlantis will need all the help it can get."

"He's not gone. We'll find him," Ronon said, his turn to feel uncomfortable. Maybe McKay felt the thunder, too. But damn, he hoped they were both wrong.

"Right," McKay whispered.

TBC...

_A/N: I realize that so far, this is less of a story than a series of vignettes. An interesting approach and I beg your indulgence. There is plenty of action and adventure to come on around day 6-7 ;-)_


	4. Day 5

**Day 5**

Rodney sat in the chair in Sam's office twitching his fingers around his tablet computer. For once, Ronon sat in the chair next to him, looking as tired and restless as Rodney felt. It was their job to come up with something. He'd spent what was left of last night going through the 587 addresses again, looking for some clue or inspiration or even a coincidence to grab at. And he'd found – something.

"Where's Carter?" Rodney groused uselessly to Ronon who just slouched lower into his chair.

"They'll be here. We're early."

By the time Lorne and Carter walked into the room, all of three minutes later, Rodney was squirming with impatience. He shoved his tablet onto Sam's desk and began talking, even before she had reached close enough to put her hand on her chair.

"We need to search G1C-370. And we'll need backup, if this place really is a hideout of Michael's, then maybe 2 teams of Marines. I think if we -."

"Rodney! Slow down for a second." Sam sank into her chair and gave Lorne time to join them around the desk. "Now. What are you talking about?"

Rodney took a deep breath. "I went back over the addresses we pulled from 587, the planet where Sheppard went missing. This time I also cross referenced our intel from the ongoing investigations into Michael's hideouts and potential laboratories. G1C-370 came up on both lists. Now, we had dismissed 370 as a possible location for finding Teyla because the source of that intelligence described the environment as hostile. But it's a bit of a coincidence that Sheppard goes missing just when we're looking hardest for Michael and then find this address popping up again, don't you think?"

Rodney looked smugly at Sam who looked at Lorne.

"Nice one, McKay. And damn convenient. We've just about struck out with all our other leads on Teyla. This is just what we needed."

"Of course it is. Convenient?" Rodney wasn't usually given to recognizing subtlety, but there was something in the way Lorne had spoken that triggered Rodney's "what's up?" nosiness. He looked to Sam.

"We were going to pull you off the search for Sheppard and put you back on combing through the data we have on Michael," she said. She sounded almost apologetic.

Ronon sat up with a noisy jerk at Rodney's left shoulder. "Why?"

"Because until this morning, our best approach to finding Sheppard was going to be searching the list of addresses from 587 one by one. You could do that perfectly well without McKay."

"McKay's on my team."

Rodney turned to stare at Ronon. The Satedan had shifted to the edge of his seat and sat with elbows askew, looking as if he were ready to leap up and snap Sam in two. Rodney was taken aback. Ronon felt that strongly about having him on his team? It was both touching and extremely confusing. After their talk last night, Rodney had begun to wonder if he wanted to be on ANY 'gate team if Sheppard didn't come back. He might make more of a difference staying in research on Atlantis.

"McKay is lead scientist for Atlantis and 2nd in the civilian chain of command. His duties here take priority over his 'gate team duties." Sam's voice grew soft, sympathetic. "They always have, Ronon. So, tell me more about 370, Rodney. What exactly did you mean by 'hostile environment'?"

Rodney answered quickly, but out of the corner of his eye, he caught Ronon's scowl and unhappy slouch back into the chair. His posture betrayed his thoughts and Rodney suddenly remembered Ronon saying something about feeling out of the loop.

"Three weeks ago, a Genii contact dropped us a hint that Michael had a hidey hole on 370. The 'gate is in an underground facility that was once a Genii testing ground for their nuclear program. Apparently, the place had been abandoned for some time, but a Genii scavenger team went missing after looking for some spare parts left behind. A communiqué about giant bugs was all they had."

"Michael's pre-hybrid monsters," Lorne muttered.

"Exactly what we decided. The Genii also said that the facility was fairly hot with nuclear radioactivity after their testing. Sheppard thought that Michael wouldn't take Teyla there even if he did own the place."

"He does seem interested in keeping the baby healthy," Sam agreed.

"It makes a certain amount of sense that the contact that lured Sheppard to 587 was Genii. Maybe there's a Genii connection to Michael we haven't pinned down yet."

"Or maybe it only makes sense in that both this 370 and 587 are Genii worlds and would have had contact between them in some distant past. We could be dealing with pure coincidence." Sam looked stern as she spoke and Rodney could only shrug. He'd thought of that, too.

"It's the best I've got right now. Do you want me to spend more time on the rest of the Michael intel?" Rodney threw a nervous look at Ronon as he asked.

"No, I'll take even coincidence at this point. Teyla's on a timeline that we have no control over. Whatever Michael's plans are, I don't want that baby involved. We have to get to her before the baby arrives."

"Even if that means giving up on Sheppard?" Ronon asked. Lorne also stiffened at the question and Rodney saw them both glaring at Carter.

"No one's giving up on anybody," she stated firmly. "We'll be continuing both investigations in parallel. Or, as our luck seems to have it, we'll combine them. Lorne, Ronon, prepare your teams for a survey of G1C-370. Leave as soon as you're ready."

Rodney and Ronon stood up, eager to go. Lorne chewed on his lip for a moment, then took a step closer to Sam's desk. Rodney paused, waiting to see what he was going to say.

"Colonel, with your permission, I'd like to put team 6 on working their way through the list of addresses to continue the manual search for Colonel Sheppard. It may turn out to be pointless, but if 370 ends up being a bad coincidence, then we won't have wasted any time getting back to that approach."

"Fine with me, Major. Have them work with Zelenka on prioritizing the search order."

"Thank you, ma'am."

Sam's smile was rueful. "Go on, get out of here," she said.

"Going!" Rodney chimed in cheerfully as he followed Lorne out the door. For just an instant, he felt like they were finally making progress, like there was a sudden whiff of hope in the air. Last night, he'd felt an inch from despair. Not that he'd hoped they would find Sheppard smashed at the bottom of a cliff, but he'd been out of ideas of where to look next, and for a man like Rodney, that was more frightening than a room full of Michael's monsters. Ok, not really.

But now, he had something to cling to, some satisfying bit of logic to hang some optimism on. He wasn't like Sheppard in that regard, who could find optimism in the mere fact of his own continuing existence. Rodney needed an anchor for hope, or the universe got very bleak and depressing very quickly.

With a renewed bounce in his step, Rodney hurried out to keep up with Ronon.

* * *

It turned out that getting the mission off the ground to G1C-370 was more difficult than first imagined. The MALP reported low levels of radioactivity in the dank underground (presumably) tunnels surrounding the Stargate, so Rodney insisted upon outfitting the strike force with Geiger counters and personal radiation badges that would tally exposure to the deadly energy.

And strike force was an accurate term. The MALP also registered life form readings numbering in the dozens, so Lorne and Ronon added a third team to the mission and geared everyone up with enough ordinance to fight a medium-sized war. No one on Atlantis would soon forget Neglee's team of marines that had fallen prey to Michael's bug creatures.

Once everything was prepared, and everyone was ready, it was 6 o'clock p.m., Atlantis time. Anderson, Corrigan and the rest of the teams milled around on the platform below the control room as Lorne, Ronon and Rodney checked the MALP feed, one last time. The grainy, blank and white image was dim, and it was hard to make any sense out of the shapeless shadows beyond the MALP's immediate space.

"Throw it in!" Lorne bellowed over the rail, and Anderson tapped a flare, waited three seconds for it to sputter into full ignition, then tossed it through the event horizon. On the monitor in the control room, the darkened dungeon suddenly brightened with the flare's arrival and all three observers bent closer in intense scrutiny of the small image.

Rodney thought he caught a gleam of reflected light and snatched for the remote that would control the MALP's camera.

"Pan it to the right," Lorne agreed.

The image bounce as it jerked to one side and more pinpoints of light were suddenly staring back at them from behind the edge of the just visible DHD. Rodney peered closer, then jumped back in alarm, jabbing a finger at the monitor.

"Did you see that? How many are there?"

Ronon just grabbed the remote and swung the camera around in a large arc. The room was a seething mass of scuttling, shiny bodies and eerie eyes reflecting weirdly in the flickering flare: Michael's monsters. A bunch of them. With a snort of disgust, Ronon threw the remote down and looked at Rodney.

"What are you glaring at me for? Those things weren't there this morning. I'm sure of it."

"You did say there were dozens of them, McKay," Lorne said, also looking grumpy.

"I said there were dozens in the general vicinity. Do you seriously think I would just forget to mention hundreds of those things crawling around right outside the 'gate?"

"Well why are they there now?"

"How should I know? Maybe they know what the MALP is and they're waiting for us. Maybe it's supper time and they're expecting Michael to shove a few tasty prisoners through for them. Does it matter? We can't go in there!"

Rodney was actually backing away from the screen and found himself clenching his sweaty hands into fists. He hadn't had the misfortune of running into the strangely human-like bug things since escaping from the original lair where they were created. But the memory of their grotesque bodies and terrifying tendency to jump out at you from dark corners had haunted his daydreams for a year. It was bad enough knowing they were there, but so many in one place, seemingly waiting for them, was enough to send Rodney to the verge of an anxiety attack.

If Lorne and Ronon were unnerved, neither gave any sign. Lorne finally sighed and turned to Ronon, leaving Rodney to stare blankly at the screen, mesmerized by the scene.

"What do you think? 18 to 20?" Lorne said.

"I counted 18," Ronon agreed.

"Too many to engage all at once."

"Wait 'til later? Hope they go away?"

"Seems a waste."

"Grenades?"

"Little hard on the landscaping. Might damage the DHD." There was a sigh, then a pause, and Rodney finally pulled his gaze away to find Lorne and Ronon nodding at each other thoughtfully. Ronon suddenly looked up with a slight grin.

"Poison?" he said. Lorne's eyes lit up.

"Sheppard worked on an organophosphate pesticide with the chemistry boys a while back, specifically designed to take out those things. Never had the chance to test it."

"Then let's test it."

Ronon's voice was almost gleeful and Rodney had to quickly run back through the conversation to catch up. Lorne wanted to bug spray the monsters waiting for them? That sounded fine to Rodney except –

"For the best results you'll have to deliver the poison in aerosol form. That will make the area around the Stargate off limits for at least 12 hours afterwards while the toxins dissipate. We might want to wear masks even then."

Lorne ignored the last and just exchanged a shrug with Ronon. "Be a bit of a wait," he said.

"Worth it to take out a bunch all at once." Ronon said.

"All right, then. I'll let the guys rest, but keep them kitted up. We'll give it 6 hours after we drop the poison, then go."

Rodney startled. "I said 12 hours! And that's assuming there's any kind of ventilation down there at all, it might be worth waiting a little longer to –."

"McKay, the MilSpec on the stuff says 6 hours. I helped Sheppard log the data in the ordinance database."

"And you're going to trust _Sheppard_ on that kind of thing? Mr. Optimistic-to-the-point-of-denial? If he –."

"McKay."

Ronon interrupted Rodney's windup just long enough for him to snap out of the argument and blink at the realization that Lorne was past looking grumpy and headed all the way to almost really angry. Ronon slapped him on the shoulder with enough force to send him back a step. "It's fine. We'll check it out before we send everyone through," he went on. "I'll go get the stuff. Lorne, do you want to tell the guys?"

Lorne held Rodney in a tight-jawed glare as he nodded, then abruptly marched off towards the stairs and the strike force waiting below. Rodney rolled his eyes and looked to Ronon in appeal.

"He's just stressed, McKay. You could tone it down a bit. Lorne's in charge."

"And that means I'm supposed to hut-to like the rest of you good little soldiers? No thank you. Sheppard picked me for the team as technical expertise. If Lorne won't take my advice then –."

"Sheppard's not here," Ronon snapped, finally sounding annoyed. He looked like he was going to say more, then turned his back and left in the other direction towards the tower hallways and the military base beyond.

Rodney stood by the monitor, frozen with surprise. To hide his angry thoughts, he bent over to study the MALP monitor again, shuddering as the beasts continued to scuttle just beyond the flickering glow. As the flare began to dim, Rodney thought he just caught the outline of a shadow crumpled into the far corner of the stone room. He peered even closer, but the flare sputtered, then went out.

Trying hard to convince himself that he hadn't just seen the shape of a pair of black boots attached to black pants, he switched off the monitor. _Sheppard's not lying there, either_, he told himself firmly. He headed through Sam's office towards the ready room where he planned to dump his gear and go get some actual work done while they waited for the bug spray to dissipate.

"Hurry up and wait," he muttered to himself, quoting the unofficial military motto he was coming to understand all too well. He took a deep breath and charitably decided to let the argument go. Lorne was stressed, and as worried about his CO as Rodney. They usually got along well. Besides, he wouldn't be in charge for long.

Rodney had grown rather proud of his deductions that led him to 370. He was certain that 370 was the right answer. Over the course of the day, he'd even begun to think of Sheppard as just away on a long mission, or off doing boring soldier stuff. They'd storm the planet, rescue Sheppard for a change, maybe even Teyla too, and life could go on as it was supposed to.

If he'd allowed himself to let go of his pride long enough to admit it, he was just a bit glad that Lorne had pushed the schedule up. The sooner they found Sheppard, the sooner things could get back to normal around here. Sheppard didn't get mad when he pointed out reasonable concerns about the safety of their team. Sheppard didn't stomp out of the room in a huff.

Sheppard knew that Rodney would do anything, anytime, anywhere for him and didn't need Rodney to "tone it down" to know it.

Rodney jerked brusquely at his vest zipper as he walked, a hint of doubt lingering.

But Sheppard wasn't here.


	5. Day 6, pt 1

**Day 6**

_Rodney was rowing in a flimsy rowboat towards a distant Atlantis. No matter how hard he pulled at the oars, he never got any closer, but he kept rowing because he didn't know what else to do. When he realized that the burden was lighter, he turned to find Sheppard sitting next to him, rowing in rhythm to Rodney's own strokes._

"_What's with the getup?" Rodney asked. Sheppard was dressed in knight's armor, complete with helmet and iron gloves. He clanked with each pull. Rodney knew it was Sheppard even though the helmet completely obscured his face. _

"_How should I know? This is your dream." The voice was 100 percent Sheppard. "Maybe I represent some weird fear of blood poisoning by sword wound."_

"_Seems unlikely. I'm pretty sure they have a cure for that."_

"_Well, they didn't in my century."_

"_Your century? You're from the same century I am, pal."_

"_Maybe I'm not."_

"_Not what?"_

"_From your century."_

"_You're saying that you're not my Sheppard, but a distant relative of Sheppard's from the past?"_

"_It's your crazy-ass dream."_

"_That's a frightening thought. Little Sheppard clones terrorizing all of time with spiky haired descendants." Sheppard didn't reply, so Rodney tried to provoke him again, "You rescue any maidens from dragons lately, Lancelot?" Still no reply. Sheppard remained silent, and completely motionless._

"_Sheppard? Did you rust?"_

_Rodney reached out and shook a dingy iron shoulder. The armor fell apart like it had been built of child's blocks, and Sheppard was lying limply in Rodney's arms, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as if he were in pain._

"_I'm lost," he whispered, faintly._

"_I know. Just hang in there, John. We're looking for you. We're looking as hard as we can."_

_The unconscious Sheppard began to melt away, disappearing from Rodney's lap like a fading memory. "It's time to go," the phantom Sheppard whispered. "It's time to go._ _It's time…"_

"Time to go! Come on, McKay. Wake up. We leave in 15 minutes with or without you."

Rodney jerked, then groaned as Lorne shook his shoulder briefly. He'd dozed off propped up against a wall in the ready room. He stretched briefly then lurched to his feet, his P-90 banging into his chest as it swung from the clasp on his tactical vest. Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, he shuffled behind the crowd at the door. For a moment, all he saw were grey jackets and black vests and short haircuts. Everyone looked the same.

"Hey, McKay," Ronon said at Rodney's right shoulder. There was just a hint of worry in the friendly greeting, "You awake?"

"I will be. Poison is clear?"

"I took the readings, Dr. McKay. EC looks fine as long as we watch our badges for radiation exposure." Dr. Corrigan was standing next to Ronon and answered with typical enthusiasm. Captain Anderson, Ronon's other pick for their team stood just beyond Corrigan, looking thin and alert and altogether too young.

"Good, good. Any bugs left?"

"Some ran off. There are a bunch dead," Ronon answered this time.

"Good," Rodney said again. The rest of the room was clearing out, but Ronon's team hung back, gathered together around Rodney. It didn't feel exactly right, but it didn't feel wrong either. He was going to do something useful; he had a skilled team beside him. Rodney found himself smiling with grim anticipation. "So. We going to do this or what?"

Corrigan and Anderson grinned. Ronon slapped him on the arm.

"Let's go," Ronon said and led them out of the room.


	6. Day 6, pt 2

"Team three – you're clear! Come on in!"

Lorne's voice crackled into Ronon's earpiece and the Satedan curled his lips back in a snarl. He was really looking forward to this. He raised his weapon to ready height, flicked a glance at Anderson who was in ready position at his left shoulder and stepped through.

The bright, cheerful light of the Atlantis gateroom faded to be replaced by the primitive flickering of flares. Humid, warm air wrapped itself around him. Ronon felt sweat prickle his forehead almost instantly. He made a rapid 180 degree sweep of the room, then took two deliberate steps forward. Anderson mirrored his motion, and stepped off slightly to the left.

"Stinks in here," he heard McKay mutter after he and Corrigan had walked out of the gate a moment later. Ronon silently agreed. The air was sharp with the lingering scent of poison, but it was the underlying odor of the foul creatures that wrinkled his nose. It smelled like death.

Still sweeping the room with his eyes and his weapon, he spread his team out with a nod and they advanced further into the stone cavern. Although there were 12 men scattered through the room only about as large as Atlantis's cafeteria, it was nearly silent. Lorne's team was off to their right, near one of the room's exits; Lt. Jones' team of Marines was spread out and seemed to be taking a count of the dead bug monsters that lay scattered all around them, some in heaps, as if they'd tried to huddle together as the poison took them.

After several minutes of eerie quiet, the whole group relaxed just slightly. Ronon holstered his gun, sweeping aside his long leather coat with the gesture, and stood with Lorne and Jones beside the DHD.

"So far so good," Lorne said grimly. "We got a bunch of bugs and they don't seem eager to come back here."

"My team counts 13 dead, sir," Jones added.

"So what next?" Ronon asked. He was eager to keep moving, find the answers he needed to find and fight the monsters he needed to fight.

"Depends on how many are left. McKay! What do we know about this place?" Lorne directed the last across the room where McKay had wandered right up to the shadows along the wall. He was looking at something on the floor.

"Not much yet. Too bad we can't ask this guy," McKay replied. His voice sounded tight and Ronon turned immediately to investigate. In the very corner of the room, a dead human lay sprawled against the wall. The man was dressed in a tunic and leather vest with black pants tucked into black suede boots that had been gnawed on as if by giant mice. The tunic was similarly torn and brown splotches that had once been red stained the cream colored fabric.

Ronon made a soft grunt of disgust as he took in the figure then rolled his head at McKay to avoid looking at the dead man.

"I know," McKay said. "I could be wrong, but…he looks Athosian to me."

Ronon forced himself to look again and nodded as he recognized the style of clothing and haircut. The man's face was in shadows, so with a deep breath, Ronon pulled out a flashlight. He gasped right along with McKay when the beam caught the strangely distorted features of a changed Athosian.

"It's a hybrid," McKay exclaimed. "Why would the bugs attack one of their own guys? For that matter, why would Michael send one of his newer models to the bugs if it was just going to get eaten?"

"I dunno," Ronon shrugged. Lorne and Jones had joined them and were looking equally appalled. "Maybe the bugs weren't supposed to eat him and did anyway. Maybe this guy pissed Michael off."

"Or maybe – He's a discarded model. One of the test subjects that didn't go as planned, so Michael gave up and fed him to his pets!" Rodney looked pleased with his theory, but Lorne just waved his hand in a 'let's get on with it' gesture.

"So, since we can't chat up the dead guy, what can YOU tell us about this place, McKay?" Luckily, McKay missed or chose to ignore the testiness in Lorne's tone, and Ronon sighed a bit in relief when McKay just whipped out his palm scanner and began talking.

"It's big. The complex I mean. We're about 10 kilometers underground at this point; the facility is spread over two square kilometers and extends several more levels down. Something about it feels familiar somehow…"

"How many bugs?" Jones wanted to know.

"Oh. Life signs detector is picking up at least two dozen more life signs across the whole facility. I can't tell from this whether they're bugs or prisoners or even hybrids. I really think I've been somewhere like this before –."

"In Michael's last lair, I bet. Just tell us where the signatures are," Lorne interrupted and Ronon saw McKay start to correct him, then give up. Ronon was impressed. Maybe McKay was taking his advice after all.

"They're pretty spread out. Eight are in our general area. The closest ones are in a little group about 100 yards down that hallway." McKay pointed towards the furthest of the two exits out of the Stargate room. "Two are on the level directly below us. There's a stairway just beyond the second door. Two more are at the end of the second hallway."

"Three targets, three teams," Ronon suggested, summing up the report. Lorne nodded.

"Jones, you take the largest group down hallway one. My team will take the two at the end of the second hallway. Ronon, you take your team down the stairs and let McKay look around a bit more. See if you can find a control room or a lab or something. Once the area is secure, Jones will hold the 'gate and we'll set up a search pattern for the rest of the complex."

His orders dispensed, Lorne walked quickly back to his team and hustled them into formation. Jones followed suit and the eight men were soon stalking out the doors in wary readiness. Ronon waved his team together and headed towards the door they'd been directed, giving Lorne a head start to clear the hall past the stairwell they would enter.

This time, Ronon didn't mind holding back. He'd had a tough moment at the Stargate when Lorne assigned him as third team, last to enter the 'gate and most likely to miss the fun. The wound to his pride had diminished to just a small sting once McKay and Corrigan joined him and Ronon realized that his team wasn't a fighting team. Oh, they would be able to scrap their way out of any messes they found themselves in – even McKay was getting pretty good at blasting things with his P-90. But his team was the brain of the operation.

If anyone could make use of the information they would find at the facility, it would be McKay. He'd chosen Corrigan in guilty acknowledgement that he would fill Teyla's role as a negotiator. And Anderson was a pilot. Not as crazy gifted as Sheppard, but skilled and well able to use his artificially introduced ATA gene to make a jumper get where it needed to go.

Lorne might get the top team if they didn't manage to haul Sheppard's ass out of this dungeon, but Ronon was convinced he had the _best_ 'gate team, even now. He'd patterned the set of skills after Sheppard's team in deliberate imitation. He just really hoped it wouldn't be permanent.

"Our turn," he grunted, readying himself for their next job. "Anderson, you're with me on point. Corrigan, McKay, stay together behind us."

McKay bobbed his head in the way Ronon recognized as nervous acknowledgement but suddenly blurted out, "I still think the layout of the facility looks familiar. If I can figure out the design, we can look more efficiently." He was still holding his palm scanner and looking furtively down the hall for some reason as they walked towards it. Ronon finally figured out that he was checking to make sure that Lorne was out of earshot. Ronon paused for just a beat.

"What does this place remind you of?" Ronon couldn't think of any other underground bug-infested dungeons that they'd been in recently.

"I'm not certain, but the layout is similar to the Ancient geothermal research facility on Taranis." Ronon just stared and McKay waved his hands impatiently. "The planet with the supervolcano where Sheppard found the Orion?" Ronon nodded and McKay went on, "It's just a superficial resemblance, of course. This facility may be designed for some other purpose."

"This place is Ancient? Why didn't we know that before?"

"You're asking me why this place isn't in the Ancient database on Atlantis? If I had a nickel for every time I've been asked that, I could retire." He sighed and studied his scanner further. "If this place is related to Taranis, then we have another connection to Michael. He experimented on those people first."

Ronon just nodded. "Let's go find out." The sound of MP5 gun fire reached them from both hallways, and they moved forward with determined grimness. Lorne and Jones were already about their work, it was time to do theirs.

The hallway beyond was narrow, three men could stand shoulder to shoulder, and about twelve feet high. The native stone walls were rough and damp with moisture, and Ronon found himself placing his feet carefully to keep from slipping on the smooth rock floor. McKay may think this place was built by Ancients, but it was more primitive than he usually associated with that technological society.

The stairs were a few yards down the hall, and were little more than metal scaffolding circling down into a deep shaft of bored rock. Ronon paused at the top, then stepped out onto the metal landing to peer into the darkness below. Dim lighting of the same weirdly rose colored lights followed the stairs in a colored spiral.

There was a shout and a sudden scuffle just behind him and he spun just in time to see both McKay and Corrigan pull the triggers on their P-90s. The hallway flashed with the burst of gunfire that erupted from the pair of powerful weapons and Ronon gritted his teeth against the blast of sound. For a long moment, he couldn't see what they were firing at and he and Anderson, both on the landing just within the stairwell, stood frozen, waiting for an opportunity.

McKay and Corrigan suddenly stumbled backwards as a dark shape lunged towards them. Corrigan slipped on the sweaty concrete and landed on his back, still firing. The creature bent to swipe at the prone man, despite the barrage of bullets impacting against its abdomen. But it had moved too close to the stairs and Anderson and Ronon opened fire into its side as it now stood framed in the door. The onslaught of all four weapons finally dropped the creature to its scaly knees, and it toppled against the wall, motionless. Echoes rang down into the cavern at Ronon's back for a full ten seconds after the gunfire ceased.

Lorne came jogging up behind the creature, his own MP5 held clench-fisted in his hands. McKay reached down and pulled a very pale Corrigan to his feet.

"Nice, McKay," Lorne panted, looking relieved when he saw the dead bug. "That one got past us. Gave Abramowicz a nice little scrape, too as it went by."

"He OK?" Ronon grunted.

"Yeah, yeah. Still functional. Those bastards are tough."

Lorne looked a little shaken, and Ronon realized that he and McKay were the only – surviving – Atlantians who had ever fought Michael's creations face to face. Reports just didn't do the damn things justice. With sudden worry, he pointed back towards the Stargate room.

"Go help Jones," he said firmly. "McKay said there were at least four out his way."

"Yeah, yeah. I'll do that."

Lorne stared at the dead bug for a second, then called to his team. Ronon heard them jogging by as he turned back to the stairwell and began descending. This time, Corrigan and McKay were right behind him.

"I wonder if those things can use the stairs?" Corrigan wondered aloud after they'd turned into the second landing. His voice echoed weirdly in the stone room and was almost drowned out by the ringing of their footsteps. It was a good question. The stairs might offer some protection.

"At least they won't be fast on them," Ronon agreed.

The stairs made four turns before another doorway opened off a landing and Ronon edged up to the darkened hole in the wall, then paused before turning into it.

"Turn right once you are through the door," McKay whispered from behind him.

"Is that where the bugs are?" Anderson whispered back.

"Are you crazy? Of course not, the bugs are the other way. I want to check out a room to the right."

"We'll go left," Ronon decided.

"But then we'll run right into those things!"

"And we'll kill them, and then they won't be able to sneak up on us while you're checking out that interesting room, McKay," Anderson retorted lightly. Ronon chuckled. Anderson had put just enough cajoling humor into his tone that McKay would be sure to accept the statement. It was just what Sheppard would have said.

"Oh. OK. Right now I've got two on the scanner, 50 meters to the left. They might be in a room off the hall, but I think they're together."

"Grenades?" Anderson asked, sounding a little excited about the idea.

"I don't know," McKay answered as if the question had been asked of him. "We don't want to damage any useful equipment."

Ronon sighed. He had a sudden jolt of sympathy for Sheppard's job of constantly balancing differing opinions. He had a sudden surge of doubt that it was a job that he wanted to continue. It was fun when Sheppard pointed him at a target and set him off. He thought it through, and decided to ignore McKay's caution this time.

"We'll have lots of rooms to check out, McKay. This time we blow them up." He waited two full breaths to see if McKay was going to argue, then flashed a grin at Anderson. "Move out." Ronon liked grenades, too.

The next hall was the same as the first, but kept going in both directions for as far as they could see. The dim lighting did little to illuminate anything except their immediate footsteps and provide a faint indication as to the dimensions of their space. No other hallways or doors opened off their path. They stayed in pairs, stalking in silence except for McKay's hissing countdown towards the lifesigns they were tracking. When the countdown reached zero, Ronon could just barely make out the outline of a black hole in the shadows of the left wall.

He stopped, and the group pressed against the stone, listening. Ronon felt a stir of fetid air brush past as what feeble circulation existed within the complex pushed the stench of bug monsters through the dark door. No lights were even dimly flickering through the inky hole and Ronon shuddered as he heard faint scufflings and snorting come from the room. Or was that his imagination?

"There are definitely two somethings in there, about 20 meters from the door and holding still. The room is big, very big, but I'm not getting any power readings or any indication what it might be for." Ronon listened carefully. That the things were standing only 20 meters just inside the door of a large room told him that they were most likely waiting for something to pass by the door. He caught Anderson's eye.

"Two grenades, on the count of three," he whispered and pulled out the palm-sized explosive from another pocket of his large coat. Anderson flipped up a flap and was doing the same as McKay suddenly pushed closer.

"What if it's Sheppard? We can't just toss a bomb in there without looking first!"

"Or Teyla," Corrigan agreed. "If our people are here, they could be anywhere."

Ronon cursed softly, annoyed with himself that he hadn't considered that first. Trying to sound as if he were only continuing on with the original plan, he yanked a flare out of Anderson's belt.

"Right. Anderson, toss a flare as you take position on the other side of the door. I'll grab a look. Be ready to throw on my word."

"Yes, sir."

Anderson took the flare, positioned the grenade carefully in one hand, the flare in the other. On Ronon's nod, he tapped the flare, tossed it into the room, and darted past the door to lean against the wall just beyond in one smooth motion. There was a sickening sound of hissing as the door began to glow with flare light and Ronon eased his head around the frame to get a look.

Trying to take everything in as quickly as his eyes could record the scene, he caught only a blur of motion as two hunched and glistening shapes leaped towards the door.

"Now!" he yelped and backpedaled, yanking at the pin and tossing the grenade as far as he could into the room. Something slammed into him, and pushed him across the narrow hall and into the far wall just as two thunderous booms shattered the muggy silence of the complex in quick succession. The doorway flashed with white-hot light and smoke billowed for an instant before a solid crunch of stone upon stone sealed the room off.

He had just enough time to see the door close before his head smacked against the stone and he began to slide to the ground. A hissing, snarling impression of eyes and claws obscured his view, and he threw one arm over his face. With the other he scrabbled at his hip for his gun that sat holstered within the tangled folds of his coat. Vicious fangs clamped around his leather-sleeved arm and twisted him as he slid to land on his gun shoulder.

He howled as his arm was pinched between powerful jaws but the leather protected his skin. He heard shouts and confused scuffling echo down the long hallway, but Ronon's whole concentration was focused on pressing his arm away from his body and keeping the foul face of the monster away from his own. The monster chomped again, sliding its bite further up his arm and Ronon found himself rolling onto his back and kicking at the hind legs that squatted over his prone body in desperation.

The creature slipped with the impact and scrabbled against Ronon's chest as it tried to regain its balance.

"Fucking son of a short-legged Stang," he yelled, mixing his Earth and Satedan curses into a furious shout as the claws raked a long line of fire across his collar and down his chest.

"Hold still!"

"Get out of the crossfire!"

Ronon heard the shouts, but understood nothing of the words. The creature pressed harder into his chest and he slid further down until he was nearly on his back. His arm was shaking with the effort of keeping the teeth away from his face. Just as he felt his arm collapse under the pressure, the creature let go and screeched a piercing wail. It collapsed in a heavy heap on top of him.

"Get it off!"

"Push it over!"

Ronon lay gasping as Anderson and McKay heaved the bug thing off of his chest, then knelt beside him. He closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for his breath to calm enough to hear their panicky queries.

"Sir, are you injured?"

The question finally penetrated and Ronon took a quick inventory.

"Arm is bruised," he said at last, then reached the trembling arm to his neck. The fingers came away damp with blood. "Got scratched," he added. Corrigan pressed a field bandage into the spot a moment later and he belatedly realized that that injury was probably pretty obvious.

"How's your head, sir? You hit the wall pretty hard." Ronon thought about it.

"OK. Lump on the back, maybe." With that, he decided he'd lain around enough and pushed himself upright. Nothing hollered too loudly, so he planted his hands and lurched to his feet, holding the bandage against his collarbone. The rest rose with him and stood hovering in a worried circle. All except McKay who was waving his scanner at the now closed door. "Thanks," he muttered awkwardly, fidgeting under the continued stares of his newest teammates.

"You're welcome," Anderson answered, then whistled with a low sigh of relief. "Those things are damn fast, sir. This one crossed twenty meters in a couple of seconds."

"Yeah," was all Ronon could think to say. He somehow felt that he should have anticipated the beast's attack. Or at least prepared for it. With an angry glower, he looked at the dead bug and suddenly realized that there was a standard issue combat knife sticking out of the back of the bug's neck, just where the head armor jointed against the tough shell of the bug's back armor. "Nice," he murmured, looking at Anderson.

But Anderson just grinned and presented a hand at Corrigan, "Don't look at me. Dr. Corrigan sank the knife. I couldn't figure out how to shoot it without hitting you or the others, then Jeff jumps on the thing's back and takes it out with one jab!"

Ronon turned in surprise to the blushing anthropologist. "I spent a lot of time on surveys with Dr. Pottinger, Atlantis' etymologist. Many beetles have a nerve bundle at the base of their head that is vulnerable through the gap above the thorax. Seemed like something to try, anyway."

"It worked!" Anderson crowed, approvingly.

"Sure did," Ronon acknowledged, making sure Corrigan heard the appreciation in his voice. Corrigan beamed. He daubed at the scratch across his shoulder and collar then tossed the pad aside. The wound was already clotting up. "What's with the door, McKay?" Time to get back to work, he thought.

"It came down the second the lab detected the smoke. Probably automatic fire suppression of some sort, but it indicates pretty aggressive precautions. This place is built to protect itself from catastrophic failures, if I'm right."

"So, what does that mean?"

"It means that they were doing risky stuff," McKay replied, rather unhelpfully. Ronon just decided to let it go.

"Let's go back and check out the other room." Ronon turned back down the way they'd come, but McKay stood where he was, still poking at his scanner.

"No. I want to go the other way."

"So why this way, now?" Anderson wanted to know.

"Because, when that door went down, there was an energy spike in a room three levels below us. Something down there responded when the alarm went off and that could mean a control room, or some sort of central security system. On Taranis, the entire complex was linked into a central hub. If this place is similar, we could learn a lot by getting there."

Ronon nodded and reached for his earpiece to tap the receiver, "Lorne, this is Ronon. We've cleared the next level and McKay wants to check out a room three levels further down." He waited for a reply, which was sprinkled with static when it came.

"Sounds fine. This level is secure. Jones' team will stay here and make sure it stays that way."

"Tell Jones that the only entrance onto that level is from the stairwell," Rodney said, listening in.

"Will do. Is your level clear now?"

"Affirmative," Ronon answered.

"Then my team will start a room to room search to see what we can find. Stay in touch. Lorne out."

Ronon just tapped the connection closed and waved his group down the hallway.


	7. Day 6 pt 3

They fell into formation as before, but this time Ronon wasn't concerned with stealth.

"The complex is rather like a pyramid," McKay said, idly scanning as they jogged along. "Each level is a bit larger than the last. There's a second stairwell up ahead. I'm picking up lifesigns on the levels below us, but none on the level we're going to."

Ronon turned back slightly, wincing when the motion tugged at the tender skin on his neck. "Shouldn't we check the other lifesigns out? Make sure none of them are Sheppard or Teyla?" He would only make that mistake once.

"I'd rather find the control room. We may be able to get more detailed readings from there and be able to avoid engaging bugs that we don't have to."

"Good."

They made it to the second stairwell without incident, McKay checked the scanner again and they cautiously began another climb down ringing metal stairs. The lighting in this section was out, and they descended into inky blackness with only the beams of their own flashlights to show the way. Ronon's skin began to crawl as the echoes of their footsteps drifted into nothingness at his left hand, and he found himself edging closer and closer to the stone wall as he walked.

The power was out in the next two levels as well, and they eased by each black hole in the stairwell wall with quick nervousness. McKay's scanner continued to show the bugs or otherwise unidentified lifesigns as stationery dots on the screen.

When they reached the level they wanted, Ronon paused before entering the door. The power was out here, too, and he was feeling a certain hesitation in entering such complete darkness. The stairwell at least offered a faint hint of light at the very top level as some of the glow from the hallway they'd left spilled onto the stone ceiling.

"Any way you can turn on the lights, McKay?" he asked, more wishful than sanguine.

"I'll look at it. The other levels had a panel just outside each stairwell. Maybe there's a switch, too."

"Oh! Good." Ronon hadn't noticed that. He was impressed that McKay had noticed; the man always seemed perpetually distracted. With sudden insight, Ronon realized that the impression was accurate, but what distractions called to McKay were also sometimes useful things like power panels and similarities in complex layouts.

Feeling a little reassured, Ronon took a deep breath and whirled into the dark hallway beyond the stairwell and swept the corridor with blind eyes and extended senses. Anderson did the same in the opposite direction. McKay hardly waited for an all clear before he was shoving a penlight into his mouth and poking at the panel on the wall with an Ancient version of a screwdriver he'd dug out. He had the plate open only moments later.

A full 10 minutes later, however, Ronon was getting impatient. "McKay, if you can't get it, just leave the lights and we'll turn them on from the control room."

"Wait just a minute. I've tried every combination I can think of to direct power and I think there just isn't anything getting to the main circuits. There doesn't seem to be any power in the whole complex."

"There were lights upstairs." Anderson said, sounding bored enough to be interested in power levels.

"Yes! Exactly. I think those lights were somehow tied into a limited backup system. Probably why they were so dim. If I can connect this panel to that backup circuit, then we'll have some light down here to work with."

"Just do it within the next three minutes or we'll go –."

Ronon was interrupted by a blinding blue flash that seared his dark-adjusted eyes. He squeezed them shut and threw himself to the wall of the hallway. Another burst of blue streaked towards him and he heard Anderson grunt just before the thud of his body hit the ground.

"Wraith stunner!" McKay yelled. It sounded like he'd ducked into the stairwell to avoid the continuing bursts of blue. Ronon began to fire blindly down the hall and the stunner bolts faltered, but didn't cease.

"Get the lights, McKay! I can't see who the stang is shooting!"

"There's not supposed to be anything here! The scanner showed no lifesigns on this level!" McKay was yelling, but Ronon heard him scratching at the panel behind him, despite the protests. More bolts splatted around him and Ronon crouched lower, firing so many bursts from his own weapon that the handle began to grow hot. Corrigan's P-90 fire rang out from his left.

"McKay!" he yelled when a bolt passed so close he felt the hair on his cheek rise with the energy.

"I almoth go' ih," came the panicky answer. McKay had the flashlight in his mouth again as he was furiously working. "Yeth!"

There was a sudden hum above him, and the row of paneled lights along the ceiling began to glow with dim-red pulses. The glow grew brighter and the hallway slowly began to come into shadowy focus. More blue streaks darted towards them, but Ronon grinned. He was beginning to see the shapes of the figures firing at him – and they were humanoid.

"Hold your fire," he ordered Corrigan quickly thumbing his own weapon down to stun. Now able to take deliberate aim, Ronon sighted at the distant shadows and began to fire, walking forward as he pumped the trigger on his weapon with manic speed.

One figure dropped, then a second. The third fired several rapid bursts then turned and ran. Ronon bolted after it, still firing. Just as he was certain the fleeing shape would dart out of range, a lucky shot tapped it on the back and it pitched forward to lay motionless in a sprawl across the hallway.

Panting, Ronon slowed to a jog, then realized he was already standing over the body of the first enemy he'd stunned. He crouched to one knee and shoved at a shoulder to flip the human-like creature over. It was a hybrid, as he'd expected. McKay jogged up beside him and stopped, again looking faintly nauseated by the hybrid's distorted features. This one wasn't Athosian. Ronon didn't recognize the style of dress.

"Corrigan's watching Anderson. He just got stunned," McKay panted, apparently falling back on protocol to avoid the uncomfortable scene.

"Why didn't we see them on the scanner, McKay?" Ronon went straight to the point.

"I don't know. Maybe one of the rooms around here is shielded. Or maybe they can hibernate like the wraith. Wraith don't show up on scans when they're hibernating. The room we want is just a bit further."

Ronon just sighed. If he pressed the issue, he'd only get more theories. And there might be answers in that room. "Ok. We'll check it out. Corrigan can keep watch at the stairwell until Anderson wakes up."

"I already told him as much. He's going to drag Anderson into the room right across from the stairs to keep an eye out. It was just an empty storage room of some sort. What about these guys?" McKay waved nervously at the hybrid at their feet. Ronon held his gun up, adjusted the setting, then fired a red hot bolt into the chest of the creature.

"This one won't be giving us any trouble."

"I guess not," McKay whispered.

The other two hybrids met the same fate, and they were soon standing in the door of a massive room that Ronon's flashlight couldn't begin to find the edge of. Every inch was stuffed with control panels and screens and laboratory tables and data units. It looked to Ronon like the Ancients had moved the rest of the complex into this one room, then left it, hoping the machines themselves might find entertainment among their own company. And, yes: he was now convinced that this place had been built by Ancients. Every angle and crystal button reeked of Ancient design.

McKay was grinning from ear to ear. He clapped his hands together in eager anticipation.

"Now this is better!" he announced.

Ronon followed him around the winding paths of the jumbled room for several minutes. McKay seemed to be simply glancing at the panels they passed and Ronon finally snorted in impatience.

"What are we looking for?"

"I'll know it when I see it. And I see it!"

McKay dashed over to a panel that was the same as the rest as far as Ronon could tell, but McKay started poking buttons and pulling on control crystals with happy urgency. In only a few moments, the panel glowed to life and McKay grinned even wider.

"This panel controls the power grid for the complex. As I suspected, everything is shut down, and battery backup power is coming from somewhere else completely. Haven't figured that out yet." He poked at his scanner, then at the console a bit more. "From what I'm getting out of this panel, I was right to some degree: this complex is also powered by geothermal energy. All I have to do is activate the turbines," he tapped out a complex pattern, "initialize the grid," another series of pokes, "aaaand, flip the switch."

With a flourish, McKay slapped a large crystal at the top of the panel. He looked at the ceiling with a smirk that grew deeper when the lights hummed and began to glow. And this time they didn't stop at a dim minimum. The glow brightened into bright, blindingly white light that bounced off the polished stone floor and set the vast room of equipment gleaming."

"Nice work. Now can you find a…"

Ronon was about to ask about scanners when a low rumble interrupted his thoughts. The rumble seemed to come from under his feet, and he looked down just as a wailing alarm began to ring out through the room. He looked at McKay. McKay looked at the panel.

"Um…" said McKay.

Ronon didn't wait. He grabbed McKay by the shoulders and shoved him towards the room's entrance. Pushing him along into faster motion, they raced back the way they'd come. He didn't know exactly what was going on, but Ronon knew one thing: Alarms and power grids didn't mix. He needed to get his people out.

They skidded around the last bank of machines and Ronon's heart skipped a beat. A large stone door was sliding down from the top of the frame, stone grinding against stone as is dropped. McKay stiffened at the sight, but Ronon put one hand on McKay's back, the other on his belt, planted his feet and shoved with all his might.

"Wait! Maybe I can --!"

McKay lurched forward with the savage thrust and flew through the door into the hallway beyond. Ronon hurled himself after and felt hard stone scrape against his shoulder. He slid with the door to the floor, then pressed his hands against the unyielding barrier. A muffled boom echoed through the room at the door's closing. Boom after boom vibrated along the walls at his fingers and through the floor under his knees.

_All_ the doors were closing.

The facility had put itself in lockdown. Ronon was trapped in a room full of indecipherable Ancient technology and McKay was on the other side. The alarms still wailed.

"Ronon! Come in! Do you read?" At least the radios still worked. Ronon tapped his finger to answer McKay's panicky queries.

"I'm here, McKay. You Ok?"

"Um…"

"What happened? Why the hell did the doors close?"

"Well…"

"What?!"

"Four bug things just crawled out of the stairwell. I've got to… Um, I've got to go!"

"McKay?"

Ronon pounded on the door, but it was thick and solid. He pressed his ear right onto the stone, listening for footsteps, anything.

"McKay!"

A faint crackle of gunfire filtered through cold rock.

"Mckay! Lorne! Anderson, do you read?! Anyone!"

Ronon kicked the door then stepped back, pulling out his gun. He fired, then flinched as the ricochet whizzed past his shoulder and impacted against the nearest control panel, leaving a smoking black hole.

"McKay?" he said into the radio, then turned his back to the wall. He sagged against the door and looked into the gleaming room before him.

Only static answered his plea.


	8. Day 6, pt 4

When Rodney pushed himself off the floor of the hallway, it was bright with full power lighting. The complex didn't seem so primitive under the white lights, he thought as he staggered to his feet. The walls were still rough and slimy with humidity, but they had a carved regularity that hadn't been obvious in the shadows. He finally thought to look around for Ronon. The man had been right behind him.

"Ronon?" he called, wondering if he'd gone on down the hallway for some reason. He squinted towards the stairwell several meters back towards the way they'd come. It was empty. There was no hint of Anderson or Corrigan either. They must still be in the storage room across from the stairs. He suddenly whirled towards the closed control room door and tapped his earpiece.

"Ronon! Come in! Do you read?" The receiver in his ear crackled with static, but there was a gratefully quick reply.

"I'm here, McKay. You Ok?"

Rodney was just about to indulge in a satisfying rant of relief when a hint of motion caught his attention.

"Um…"

"What happened? Why the hell did the doors close?"

"Well…" It was a good question but Rodney was much more distracted by the shapes that were stalking out of the stairwell with predatory caution. He gripped his P-90 and began to back down the hall, edging closer to the walls as well.

"What?!"

"Four bug things just crawled out of the stairwell. I've got to… Um, I've got to go!"

"McKay!"

Rodney pressed as close to the side as he could, then began to walk backwards, trying to resist the temptation to turn and run. You weren't supposed to run from dogs, it attracted their attention. He hoped bugs worked on the same principal.

"Ronon! You need to find the control panel for the security systems, and find out what the alarms mean," he whispered. There was a long silence. Rodney walked faster as the bugs turned towards him and began to wander his way. "Ronon? Lorne? Anderson?"

He dropped his hands in disgust. The radios weren't powerful enough to penetrate the thick stone of the complex except at very close range. He needed to get back in that control room. He needed to find out what that alarm meant, because if the Ancients were consistent about one thing, it was that they liked to warn people just before things went really bad.

One of the bugs jogged ahead and was looking like it had spotted Rodney. First things first; Rodney had to get away from these things or he wouldn't be finding anything except the sharp end of a set of very disgusting teeth. When the lead creature screeched and began to scuttle faster, Rodney forgot all about dogs and ran.

The walls rippled by in a slick blur and he ran even faster as a chorus of screeches echoed down the hall behind him. All the doors were closed. There was no place to hide, just an endless hallway with four creatures from someone's sick idea of a horror flick between him and the rest of his team.

Lorne! That was it. Lorne was only three levels up, and the stairwell that led back up to the Stargate room was at the end of the hall. Panting and gasping, Rodney finally skidded into the turn at the door of the stairwell, remembering to look first before he barreled through. It was also brightly lit and the metal stairs were more ornately carved and designed than he'd noticed before. Without meaning to, he glanced back the way he'd come and yelped as he saw the bug creatures only a few yards behind him.

"Ronon, I'm going to kill you. I should be in that control room saving the day. You're the one who actually enjoys running around and shooting things," he began to mutter as he turned up the stairs and began to climb. His legs were already protesting the exertion and sweat was dripping in his eyes from the humid air that rose up in rippling heat from the bottom of the stairwell.

"Lorne! Come in!" Still no answer.

Rodney had made it to the first landing when the first bug poked its head onto the stairs. Rodney sped up, but the creature caught a glimpse of him and screeched, sounding happy. Rodney could hear its scrabbling claws against the metal rungs as it also began climbing after him. He risked a peek before he made the next turn and felt a moment of relief. Ronon had been right; the bugs weren't very fast on the stairs and the two that he could now see following him kept slipping as they climbed.

Rodney took a deep breath and forced his legs up, step after step. Once he'd passed the level just above the control room, he began to wonder if he should do something other than run away from the bugs pursuing him. Ronon would have shot them all in the hallway outside the control room door, but Rodney didn't have the firepower or the disturbing lack of self-preservation that Ronon, and Sheppard, seemed to have.

He paused on the steps, breathing hard. Rodney wasn't good at combat, but he was good at solving problems.

He continued his climb, digging in his vest as he went. He should really learn where everything was kept, someday. Sheppard always seemed to know exactly which pocket everything was kept in, without even looking once. Maybe it was because he packed his own vest, Rodney thought suddenly. Sheppard always packed Rodney's vest. Rodney always brought his own gear and his backpack if he needed it, but he left the "Army stuff" to Sheppard. Sheppard always gave him that annoyed smirk when he called it that.

Who had packed his vest this time? It was just hanging on his hangar, ready to go like always. Had Ronon gotten it ready? Lorne? Did Corrigan pack his own vest? Yes, he remembered the anthropologist hunched over the ready table, shoving things into one.

Rodney was lost in thought and made the next turn automatically without checking it first. He'd just put his foot on the first rung when a surprised hiss snapped his head up. A bug creature was lowering itself awkwardly onto the steps from the landing above and reached its claws towards Rodney in eager surprise.

Rodney froze for an instant, completely caught off guard. The creature took another step down and then slipped in its desire for some tasty flesh. It stumbled down the stairs towards Rodney with a frightening lurch, claws extended as it realized that falling was faster than walking.

Rodney backed up against the stone wall of the landing, raised his P-90 and began firing even before he'd realized he'd put his hands on the weapon. The sound of the discharge filled the cavern with painfully loud echoes. The creature advancing on Rodney writhed as the bullets struck its relatively unprotected underbelly – one advantage of Rodney's position below it. But it kept coming/falling, still reaching.

A flash of memory of Corrigan jabbing a knife into the creature on top of Ronon crossed Rodney's mind, and he adjusted his aim, trying to hit the creature's neck and hopefully the nerve bundle at the vulnerable joint. Sparks flew off the hard shell of its head.

The bug monster screeched again and with a final flailing leap flung itself forward down the last dozen steps. Rodney cringed against the wall and closed his eyes. A crunching thump splatted at Rodney's feet, and then there was silence. Rodney finally opened one eye, then the other.

The bug thing was lying still at his feet on the landing, its head nearly severed off by the hail of bullets that had gone through its neck. Rodney swallowed hard and stood panting for another long minute. When his hand stopped shaking enough for him to dig in his pockets again, he found them pulling out a P-90 cartridge and reloading his weapon. The spare cartridge that someone had packed for him, so that he would have it if he needed it. The cartridge that he would never have thought to bring until he'd been standing alone and unprotected in a stairwell with more bug monsters on his tail.

The thought spurred him onto his next plan, but as he dug around in more pockets, he felt a sudden poignant sense of appreciation for Sheppard. The man packed his vest so he'd be safe. Because Sheppard knew that Rodney wouldn't think about it. And Rodney had never even noticed he did it until it was too late to thank him. He violently shoved the thought aside. He WOULD see Sheppard again. And he would remember to thank him. And he would thank Ronon when they got back, too, for he had just decided that it was Ronon who had packed his vest this time.

At last, he found what he'd been hoping was there. A grenade. Ha! They'd trusted him with a grenade. He palmed the grenade digging some more. He needed a timer. Something sticky. C4? Rodney paused. Ronon had packed him C4? With a wide grin, Rodney tore open the small package of malleable explosive and pinched off a large sticky glob.

More hissing caught his attention, and Rodney hurried as the two bugs who seemed to have stuck with their pursuit turned onto the landing directly below him, still scrabbling and tripping as they climbed. He wedged the C4 under the spoon (and when had he picked up that lingo?), then pressed it into the goo, making sure it would stick…for a while. He then carefully pulled the pin and held his breath as he eased his hand off the handle. It stuck in place, pulling away only slightly and slowly. Voila! Homemade timer.

Rodney placed the grenade under the dead bug at his feet and scrambled. He really needed to get beyond the landing directly above the grenade before it went off, and that meant a full flight of stairs.

Below him, the bugs hissed their protest as he darted away. His legs were aching again as he made the 4th turn, but he hurried on, sighing as he put a foot on the step that would take him away from the blast. The creatures were hissing and pawing at their dead companion just below him, and he couldn't help but feel a little bit of grim pleasure at the thought of the surprise they were about to get.

A clang on one of the steps above him, yanked his head up and he had his P-90 raised before a shout held his trigger finger.

"McKay! Thank God, where is everyone? What happened?"

Lorne was jogging down quickly towards him, but Rodney just kept going up and grabbed Lorne's arm to drag him with him. The next landing was the level they'd engaged the first bugs and he shoved Lorne into the hallway just as a thunderous boom and flash of light whammed out of the stairwell. They both leaned out to look once the smoke had cleared, and Rodney cringed; the blast had taken out the bugs, and at least three sections of the stairs as well. Not to mention the giant chunk out of the stone wall. Lorne whistled.

"What the hell did you use?" he wondered appreciatively.

"Just a grenade, and um, some C4," Rodney answered sheepishly. He'd forgotten the C4 would detonate, too.

"Ronon gave you C4?" Lorne was shaking his head, then pulled Rodney back into the 2nd level hall. "What's going on, McKay? Two of my guys got trapped behind doors on this level just after the power came on. I can't reach anyone on the radio. Jones is upstairs guarding the stairwell to the stargate level, but the Stargate is cut off. Baric is in there with Mitchelson."

Rodney was nodding as he listened, "We found the main control room. I only had enough time to turn on the power. The alarms went off right after, and the place went into Lockdown. Ronon's still trapped in the control room. The rest of my team is probably trapped too."

Lorne was looking frustrated, "Why didn't you tell me before you started poking things, McKay."

"I…" Rodney was about to reply angrily, when he paused. He honestly hadn't thought about it. Ronon hadn't either. They were used to being the top team, the team in charge and Rodney had never had to check in with anybody before. Except Sheppard. And Lorne was now Sheppard, or in his role at least. Ronon was right.

"Radios don't penetrate the stone. We couldn't contact you. I was hoping to find a communications panel once the power was up…" Rodney felt a bit chagrinned at his faux pax. But he wasn't going to let Lorne see it.

"Lorne? McKay? Jones? Do you read? Come in."

With startled looks, Lorne and Rodney both pounced on their radios, each with "did you hear that?" expressions. Lorne beat him to an answer.

"Ronon! This is Lorne. Where are you? How are you getting through?

"Found the communications console. Patched it into the radios. Have you seen McKay?"

"I'm here," Rodney answered. "How did you initialize the console? I was expecting most of that room to be ATA activation only."

"Anderson's here," Ronon answered succinctly. Lorne was tugging at Rodney's sleeve.

"ATA? I thought this place was Genii." Rodney rolled his eyes.

"It's Ancient. They called it Notitia if I was reading the power console correctly. Ronon, how did Anderson get there? Are the doors open on your level?"

"No. Blew a hole between rooms."

"Oh. Well that could work. Can you get out?"

"No, outer walls are thicker. We got lucky. There was a crack in the wall between rooms. Did you hear that?" Ronon asked suddenly.

"What?"

"Ok, we can hear Jones and Abramowicz from here, too. They're good, but Baric says more hybrids came through the 'gate two minutes ago. Four of them with stunners. They got them all, but he wants to dial Atlantis for backup in case Michael sends more through."

Rodney was thinking furiously. As Lorne answered, "Ronon, relay to Baric to go ahead and request backup. We can also -."

"NO! Wait. Don't dial!" Rodney burst out, taking a step forward as he spoke urgently into his earpiece.

"McKay!" Lorne was looking testy again, even as Rodney could hear Ronon repeat his command back to Baric.

"Michael is sending those guys through, but he doesn't want them to leave. This is some kind of pet dumping ground. Tell Baric to check the DHD before he dials anything. I'm betting it's either booby trapped or disabled."

There was a long moment as the request was relayed and Baric checked things out. Lorne was glaring at McKay as they waited. Finally Ronon's voice broke the tense silence.

"You're right. Michael's got the DHD all messed up. Baric got a shock just taking the panel off. Michael doesn't want his pets leaving."

Lorne sighed and looked away. Rodney resisted smirking.

"Ok, tell Baric to hold on until Atlantis checks in from their side. THEN have him request backup and technical assistance to get the DHD back up." With a calculating appraisal, Lorne looked at Rodney.

"What do we do next, McKay?" There was a hint of apology in the tone. Rodney just tapped his earpiece in answer.

"Ronon. Look around the room and see if you can get Anderson to initialize the security systems. I'm betting they're at least partially running; fire suppression was working even under backup power."

There was another pause and Rodney leaned against the wall with his eyes closed. He was really wishing he was there, in the control room. Ronon and Anderson were competent on Ancient basics, but they weren't Rodney. Lorne stood scuffing his feet and idly inspecting his weapons.

"OK. We found it," came Ronon's voice at last. "Anderson's bringing it up."

There was another delay. "Are you sure?" Ronon said at last, sounding like he'd forgotten Rodney could hear him.

"What? What is it!" Lorne asked, picking up on the tension in Ronon's voice.

"The complex is on full lockdown. Anderson says it's responding to 'intruder alert' protocols."

"The bugs! The hybrids," Rodney exclaimed. This place detects Wraith presence and shuts everything down. The Ancients really wanted to protect this place."

"Yeah. I'm getting that. It also set off the self destruct."

"…What?" Rodney's heart froze. The Stargate was shut off. Most of their people were trapped behind closed doors.

"This place is going to blow in…" Ronon's voice trailed off and Rodney gave Lorne a terrified look. They could just hear Anderson's shaky voice speaking to Ronon.

"One hour. This place is going up in one hour," Ronon said.


	9. Day 6, pt 5

No one said anything. Ronon shook his head and closed his eyes amid the bright and shiny panels of the Ancient control room. They were giving him a headache. Anderson shifted angrily in the seat at the security console as he poked at buttons, trying to learn something about how they might turn off the self-destruct. Ronon understood his frustration.

"I can't get the self-destruct subroutines to respond, sir. They're locked, either by the intruder alert, or by an encrypted password type thing."

Ronon just nodded, waiting. For McKay. This stuff was McKay's job and right now, Ronon would give just about anything to be able to blast some bug monsters rather than have to sit in here and try to make machines work.

"Ok," McKay said at last. "Here's what we need to do. We need to kill all the bugs, then hopefully that will reset the lockdown. Once there are no wraith friends and relations in the complex, the sensors should cancel the threat. Then I'll be able to get into the control room and work on the self-destruct."

"Kill all the bugs?" Lorne's voice through the radio sounded skeptical to the point of hysteria. "Do you have any idea how big this place is, or how many of those things are down here?"

"Actually, I have a pretty good idea. In the meantime, Ronon, you keep working on the self-destruct. The sooner we find a way to shut it off, the better."

"OK…" Ronon said slowly. He had no idea how to follow that suggestion and flicked a look at Anderson who rolled his eyes and shrugged. Corrigan was wandering around the room, looking at consoles. He stopped abruptly and waved, beckoning Ronon over. Anderson followed in frustrated curiosity.

"Ronon! I found the internal sensors. If Dr. McKay is going on a bug hunt, we could direct him from here. Might make things go smoother."

"And faster," Ronon agreed happily. Faster meant McKay would get in here sooner. "Anderson, initialize the board then keep working on the self-destruct, McKay we found the internal sensors. We'll guide you to targets for you to check out."

"Can you get details? Do you see any normal human lifesigns?"

Ronon leaned over Corrigan's shoulder and they both poked at buttons to bring the sensors fully operational. The hanging screen above them flickered with scrolling text then shifted to a diagram of the complex with colored dots sprinkled throughout.

"Yes and no," Ronon answered. I'm picking up our people's subcutaneous transponders with this equipment. Everyone is accounted for. The rest are just…red dots."

"Any green dots?" McKay asked, sounding exasperated. Ronon wondered if Sheppard would be green.

"No."

"Then how many are behind closed doors?"

It was a good question, Ronon realized. They wouldn't be able to kill the ones they couldn't get to. He gritted his teeth in frustration. "Almost all of them. Ten are trapped in internal rooms, four seem to be wandering around the halls, including two just outside our door."

"Where are the other two?" This time Lorne was asking.

"Way below us. Four more levels below the control room."

"Figures," Lorne muttered. Ronon could almost hear McKay muttering to himself before the radio clicked back into life.

"That's good. Find the environmental controls. Then kill life support to the rooms with bugs in them. Lorne and I will take the last four."

Ronon waved Corrigan off to find the EC console, then sat down in front of the sensors. He would direct the hunt. At least it was a little bit like hunting himself. He waited for someone to say something else. When no one did, Ronon just tapped the controls and zoomed in on McKay's dot.

"Go down the stairs seven levels, then turn right. I'll guide you once you're there."

"Ok, but we'll have to take the other stairwell. McKay blew up the one below us." Lorne's dot was already moving down the 2nd level hallway.

"Oh. Then turn left," Ronon said, but he was secretly pleased. Must have been hell of a thing for McKay to resort to a grenade. He'd have to remember to make him tell the story. "And watch out for hybrids. They don't show up on the scanners," he added hastily.

"Hybrids? What are you talking about?" Lorne was sounding alarmed again, but Rodney's voice over the radio sounded resigned.

"I'll explain on the way. Ronon, we'll call you when we're there."

Ronon just leaned back in the seat and bounced his legs. He hated waiting. Corrigan and Anderson were busy at their tasks, but he felt useless. He slapped at the controls, scrolling the diagram to keep up with Lorne and McKay's slow descent down the 2nd stairwell. Unable to keep himself from wondering how Sheppard would have run things differently, he fidgeted again in the seat, checked the screen again.

And waited.

* * *

Rodney didn't think there were any muscles left in his body that didn't hurt by the time he and Lorne reached the landing at the 6th level. He headed into the turn that would take them to the bottom and felt his knees quiver with each step. As soon as they had killed these two bugs, he was going to make Ronon look up the nearest transporter. Surely they had one? Didn't they?

"We're almost there, Ronon," Lorne whispered into his earpiece as they rounded the last turn.

"The targets are still well away from the hallway you'll enter when you get there," came the reassuringly quick response. "Go left, then take the first right."

"Got it," Lorne answered, more loudly.

Rodney didn't say anything, just concentrated on getting his knees to bend the 10 more steps it took to walk into the bottom floor hall. There he paused, wiping sweat from his brow and pulling on his ankles to stretch out his quivering thighs. It was hot down here. This place ran on geothermal power, and the "thermal" part of that phrase was quite evident. Only about half the lights were working on this level, and the unusually dry walls were crumbling in places.

"Mckay, Lorne? Corrigan's got the EC controls initialized and the rooms with non-Atlantis signatures isolated," Ronon's voice sounded tight to Rodney, and he went on with a slight hesitation in his voice. "Are we sure we want to snuff out every room without checking first? Are you sure none of those are Sheppard or Teyla?"

For some reason, Lorne looked sternly at Rodney who spluttered a bit over his answer under the scrutiny. "We can't be certain, of course, but we know for sure they're not wearing transponders. I don't see that we have a choice, either," Rodney added softly. He felt a chill shiver down his spine, despite the heat.

Lorne swallowed hard, then took a deep breath. "Ronon, turn off life support to the rooms with hostiles."

"Yes, sir," Ronon said gruffly. "Take a left, then a right."

Lorne stepped out immediately as Ronon had directed them, and Rodney wearily followed. The crunch of debris from the walls under their feet sounded loud in the oppressively warm hall, and Rodney started to imagine the clicking of bug mandibles in every step they took. A few yards down the hall, Rodney suddenly stopped, listening intently. Those weren't bugs clicking.

"Hey, the Geiger counter's going off. We're running into some serious radiation down here!" He hastily dug the device out of the pocket where it's clicking sounded even louder outside the fabric padding. In a panic, he also flipped up his radiation badge, fully expecting it to be a solid black, indicating he'd already received a lethal dose while he'd been daydreaming in the heat. It was still nearly solid white, with only the slightest color around the edges, but there was color. "Maybe we should turn back," he suggested nervously.

"Forget it, McKay. We've got to get rid of the bugs, remember, or we get the big kaboom." Rodney looked at his watch. It had already taken them 15 minutes to get down here. And it would take longer to go back up. Especially if they didn't find a transporter.

"Right." Rodney hated when imminent death trumped slow painful death by mutating irradiated cells. But he continued on.

Ronon directed them down two more turns and the Geiger clicked more persistently with each. "We must be right on top of where the Genii were experimenting with their bombs. I wonder why they came all the way down here?"

Lorne stopped under one of the broken lights and looked through a surprisingly open door. "That's probably why," he said and pointed.

Rodney moved closer. The door was actually a wide double door that had been warped and jammed off its hinges. Beyond the wide crack that was left open, a spattering of working lights illuminated a room of such enormous proportions, that Rodney was hard pressed to find an analogy to describe it. Atlantis itself would have easily fit inside the room that sloped away from the door into a massive, crater-like cavern.

The far side was out of sight, but the walls that Rodney could see were blackened and scarred. He had to agree with Lorne's assessment.

"That would be a good place to blow up a few bombs," he said walking on by, trying very hard not to listen to the Geiger counter as it clicked its protest. He checked his badge again.

"Turn right, then you'll be on top of them," Ronon directed through the radio after only a little further down the hall. Rodney tried his scanner to confirm the readings, but the radiation was interfering with the signatures. The small device could barely even pick up Lorne who was right in front of him.

"So. What do we do when we get there?" Rodney asked.

"We kill them, McKay."

"I know that! How? We going to shoot them, throw a grenade, or stab them in the back of the neck with a knife?"

"…stab them…what?"

"Corrigan did it. Got one with a knife in the nerve bundle."

"Really?" Lorne sounded impressed, then shook off the distraction. "We'll toss a grenade if they're close enough. Finish them off with bullets if we have to."

"Ok. Got it." Rodney wiggled his shoulders and fussed with getting is P-90 situated just so, but then he lowered it slightly, "Can I throw the grenade?"

Lorne sighed. "I'll do it."

"Right. Just checking. They're fun."

"Quiet."

"Oh, right," Rodney whispered.

Together they crept up to the last turn and Lorne peeked around. He drew out a grenade, pulled the pin with his teeth and stepped into the junction to let fly with a mighty heave. Rodney counted to three before he even heard the grenade bounce once and it detonated with a flash and a whoosh before it had a chance to bounce twice. He stared at Lorne.

"Played outfield in college," Lorne said with a shrug.

"I see that." Rodney turned the corner and saw the bugs writhing slightly in a lump on the hallway floor. Feeling like he needed to take a break, he stayed where he was as Lorne jogged over and finished the bugs off with a couple of rounds into their necks. Rodney reached for his earpiece.

"Ronon, we got these two. How's it going with the others?"

"The ones in the decompressed rooms are dying off one by one," Ronon answered sounding grim. "Jones took out one when it tried to get past him upstairs."

"Oh, hey! That's good. Only one left."

There was a pause. "How long will it take you to get back up here, McKay?"

Rodney glanced at his watch. They'd used up another 15 minutes finding and killing their targets. He had half an hour to get back up the stairwell and then he had to figure out an entire Ancient self-destruct system. He sighed. "At least twenty minutes," he answered with a guess. They were cutting it really close.

"McKay!"

Rodney whirled at the shout, then realized it was Ronon who had shouted. A blue bolt of energy sliced past him just where he'd been standing and traveled on down the hallway. Completely confused, Rodney turned back towards the hallway they'd been walking along when he saw another bolt slash his way.

Reacting without thinking, he lifted his P-90 and swept the muzzle across the corridor as he fired. A very thin humanoid shape toppled to the ground and he followed it all the way down before he thought to take his finger off the trigger. Once he did, he heard Ronon still shouting warnings.

"Lorne, behind you!"

Rodney turned and saw Lorne whirl just as a blue beam caught him in the back. As Lorne collapsed, Rodney fired again, and again a humanoid figure slumped to the ground.

"McKay, what happened? Are you OK?" Ronon sounded worried.

"Yeah. Yeah. I got the hybrids, but one of them got Lorne. He's stunned." Rodney bent to check his pulse, just in case.

"They just showed up out of nowhere!"

"I got that. I'm definitely thinking they have the ability to hibernate and mask their signatures."

"And wake up damn fast."

"That too."

"McKay, you need to get back up here." Ronon's voice was suddenly stern.

"What about Lorne, I can't just leave him -."

"You don't have time. We need you in the control room. Lorne will be fine, he'll join us later."

"Ok, I guess I'll… I guess I'll start back."

With a last glance at the motionless Lorne, Rodney turned away and ran towards the stairwell. He looked at his watch, 27 minutes. Ok, he tried to reassure himself. That's not so bad. We had just a little more than that in the jumper that time and managed to retract the stuck drive pods AND save Sheppard's neck, literally.

He jogged into the last hallway, already breathing hard.

"Hey Ronon. Is there a transporter around here?"

There was a slight pause.

"No."

"Figures," Rodney muttered, and started climbing stairs. 20 minutes.

* * *

Ronon paced in front of the screen. Rodney's dot was slowly climbing the steps. The dot in front of the control room door paced back and forth, like a dog worrying a carpet. They needed more time. The doors wouldn't go up until that last creature was dead. With a sudden guilty jolt, he realized his mistake.

Jones. He should have sent Jones down to the basement with Lorne and kept McKay nearby. Ronon beat his fists against his thighs, grateful that Corrigan and Anderson were working together on the self-destruct problem an aisle away. With an angry slap, he punched the communications control.

"Jones. We need to speed things up. Leave your post and come take out the target on the fourth level."

"Yes, sir," Jones replied crisply, and Ronon saw his dot begin to move down the stairs, through the 2nd level halls, and into the 2nd stairwell towards them. He paced again, keeping an eye on Jones and McKay. With any luck, Jones would be able to kill the bug before McKay even reached their level.

Five, slow, painful minutes passed. McKay was just climbing above the fifth level and Jones was entering the control room hallway when a new dot blinked into existence. Ronon swore every Satedan curse he'd been taught, then opened the channel again.

"McKay! There's a hybrid on the level you just passed. You need to kill it."

"But…I'm…almost…there…" McKay panted into Ronon's ear via the headset.

"Go back," Ronon insisted. "The hybrid is near the stairwell, heading your way."

"Ok," McKay gasped.

Ronon saw McKay's dot descend a bit then stop. What was he doing?

"McKay! I said go after the Hybrid."

There was no reply. The two dots touched, then overlapped. Then one faded away. The other began climbing again. Ronon bit his lip.

"McKay?"

"What?" came the tired answer. "Is there another one?" Ronon grinned.

"No. Jones should have the last one cleaned up when you get here. So get here."

"Pushy," McKay muttered, but he kept coming. Jones entered the hallway and Ronon spun in a little circle of agitation, waiting for that last dot to fade and the doors to grind open. Jones drew near the second dot and there was a moment where Ronon could almost hear the gunfire as the two life signatures squared off in motionless standoff. Then suddenly, the beast's dot leaped towards Jones and the two overlapped.

"Jones!" Ronon yelled into the headset. "What's your status? Report!"

There was only static as reply, and the merged dots began to move together back down the hallway and towards the first, damaged stairwell. Ronon watched in horror. The beast was dragging Jones somewhere, but Jones wasn't dead. Yet.

"Sir! I think you'd better come look at this!" Anderson's voice bounced off the hard surfaces of the bright, shiny control room. The echo only amplified the fear in the Captain's tone. Ronon looked at the screen again, then looked at his watch. He slapped the communications.

"McKay. The last bug carried Jones down the hallway. Go after Jones."

"Ronon…the time?" McKay's voice was breathy and fearful.

"Do it, McKay. We don't have a chance until that bug is dead."

"Ok. I'll…I'll try."

Ronon kicked at a chair as he walked over to where Corrigan and Anderson were waiting for him with worried faces. "What did you want me to see," he growled, his own fear rising.

Anderson looked startled, then started to explain what he and Corrigan had figured out. But Ronon's mind was on McKay. McKay was the only one that could take out the last bug, and the only one that could fix the self-destruct. And McKay wasn't here.

And they were nearly out of time.

* * *

McKay stumbled on the last step into the control room hallway, and braced his hand against the wall. His legs could barely keep him up and his thighs burned even when he stood still. He either really, really, needed to get more exercise, or he really, really needed to avoid offworld missions that involved stairs. He decided to attempt the latter.

Wiping sweat off his brow, he pulled out his scanner and gripped his hand around his P-90. One more bug, then the doors would open. There were two dots, moving away from him up ahead. He started to jog after them, then groaned as he could manage only a stiff lurch.

"Hey!" he yelled in frustration. "Hey you slimy, son of a test tube cockroach. You want some real meat? Then come and get it. I'm so sore I'm tenderized." The dots stopped moving and Rodney blinked. "That's right. I'm standing right here. Couldn't run if I wanted to. So come on back, big guy. Put me out of my misery."

The two dots moved a few pixels closer, then miraculously separated as the bug dropped Jones and came towards Rodney on its own. Rodney gripped his P-90 and squared his feet. Good. He wouldn't have to walk any more. The bug sped up. Rodney cleared his throat nervously.

He was soon able to see the thing scrabbling down the hallway, charging him like a bull, even though it ran rather more like a T-rex on its thick hind legs. At 100 meters, he opened fire. At 50 he started to back up, still firing. At 20 meters, the clip ran out and he closed his eyes and hoped that being eaten by a bug was less painful than dying in a fiery blast as the self-destruct went off.

The creature slammed into him and threw him to the ground. It skidded past him for several feet, then leaped for his throat, reaching with claws and fangs. Rodney threw up his hand to protect himself, and suddenly realized he'd brought his sidearm up with it. Just as the creature's jaws snapped shut, Rodney fired, point blank, through its neck. The bug jerked back, then fell onto its side. It twitched for a moment, then lay still.

"Oh, boy," Rodney panted, feeling his heart pound against his chest with sledgehammers. "That was really scary." He rolled over onto his knees and winced. The hand he pressed against his collarbone came away damp with slick blood, and it stung from his neck to his chest. "And that really hurts," he added.

Suddenly remembering the self-destruct, he lurched to his feet and staggered back to the control room. There was a low rumbling coming from below his feet, and the whole complex seemed to be shaking slightly. He ran faster.

Just as he reached the door, it began to rumble open. Ronon was standing there waiting for him, his face twisted in worry as he looked at Rodney's breathless hunch, and bloody chest. Once the door had scraped itself open, there was a moment of silence so still that Rodney could hear the air hissing through the control room vents.

Something beeped into the quiet, and Rodney raised his arm to touch his watch. Ronon looked up at the ceiling, like he was waiting for something. One hour. He was too late. He didn't have time left to disable the self-destruct.

"You're late," Ronon said severely, and Rodney closed his eyes, bracing for the end to come.

Nothing happened.

Rodney jumped when Ronon laughed out loud and thumped him on the shoulder. Ronon laughed again.

"So we had to stop the self-destruct ourselves," he said.

Rodney blinked. "What?"

"We turned it off. Once the last bug was dead, the system released the lockdown like you said, so we had a chance at it." Ronon walked into the room, still grinning and Rodney followed in utter confusion.

"The self-destruct just shut off when it detected no more wraith things around?"

"No, it wasn't automatic. It still needed a code to disengage the countdown."

"So how did you disengage it?"

Ronon just walked around a bend and led Rodney to the station where Anderson and Corrigan were standing, also beaming at him with wide grins. Ronon pointed to a still smoking hole at the point where the unit connected to the main network of cables. He took out his gun and spun it around his finger.

"I shot it," he said.


	10. Day 7

**Day 7**

Ronon sank onto the ground in the Stargate room of the Notitia complex, and leaned against the wall with a weary sigh. McKay looked up from his spot a couple of feet away and smiled a weary nod of greeting. Anderson and Corrigan were passed out further down the wall, despite the murmur of technicians and constant chatter of the waiting strike force. Jones was lounging across the room with his team, bandaged up pretty good, but he smiled and laughed along with his buddies.

The technicians were still working on the DHD, and it looked like they might be waiting for a while longer if the disassembled state of the device was any clue. McKay must really be beat if he wasn't in the thick of the repairs, Ronon thought, feeling pretty beat himself. He'd just spent the last twelve hours with Lorne searching every room and corridor in the complex.

They sat in comfortable silence for a while before McKay finally rolled his head against the wall to look at him. "Tell me again how you disabled the self-destruct?" Ronon chuckled.

"Anderson said that the security panel triggered the countdown device, but that the countdown device was the unit that would trigger the detonation. He's clever, that pilot. Once the security panel released the lockdown, the countdown device was the only thing powered up that was still connected to the trigger. Anderson was trying to reroute the panel and intercept the trigger, but I decided to -."

"Blast the connection out of the wall, thereby preventing the countdown device from sending the trigger at all. So we didn't need to kill all those bugs after all?"

"No, no. If we had damaged anything in the control room under lockdown status, the security panel would have sent the trigger. Corrigan thinks that precaution is probably to prevent intruders from doing exactly what we did when we tampered with the countdown device. Normally, we couldn't have gotten away with it. We were lucky we hadn't turned on any other systems."

"Oh. Good. Hate to think we took that risk for nothing."

There was another silence, but this one wasn't so comfortable. When McKay spoke again, his eyes were closed and his voice was sad, even as he sat relaxed against the wall.

"Sheppard isn't here. Is he?"

Ronon thought of every room he'd searched over the past day, wondering as he walked through each door if he'd find his friends and realize that he'd condemned them to death trying to save himself. He scrubbed his face, then rolled his own head back against the wall. He clasped his hands around his knees and closed his eyes.

"No. He's not."


	11. And Beyond

**Day 13**

Ronon sat in the chair opposite Colonel Carter, thumping his leg. Lorne was pacing behind him and kept looking at his watch. McKay was late. After another five minutes of waiting, Ronon shifted restlessly in his seat and his knee began to bounce, making a soft thud thud thud against the metal floor as his heel thumped at each nervous rebound. Carter sighed and pushed the tablet she'd been trying to read away to looked at him.

"Should we give him another call on the radio?" she asked, sounding more amused than annoyed.

"I'll go find him."

Ronon stood up, eager to be doing something. It seemed like the last five days had simply vanished underneath him. There were teams to send out, teams to debrief, Marines to train. After they'd returned from Notitia life had kindof just – gone on.

Once he was rested up, McKay had taken a science team back to Notitia to learn what they could about the Ancient Outpost. He'd returned only two days ago. Team 6 continued to search down the list of addresses from the planet where Sheppard had gone missing.

Another team had been formed to search down the list of addresses taken from Notitia, and they had been having much more success. If you call constant conflict with Michael's bug monsters and hybrids "success". Ronon felt quite certain they would find Teyla with the leads from Notitia. It would just take some time. And that's what they had least of.

Ronon was almost to the door when McKay shoved past, looking wild and disheveled. The scientist raced over to plant his hands on Carter's desk, ranting before she could even open her mouth in surprise.

"I found it! It was in the sensor logs the whole time, but I didn't even consider the possibility because we've never seen a wormhole affected in quite this way. All other time warps have occurred in a loop with the traveler returning to the same destination they left, but there was nothing in the sensors that could have caused that particular effect, so I'd ruled it out as an avenue to pursue."

"McKay? Have you slept recently?"

Carter finally managed to shove her question into a slight pause of sound. Ronon stepped closer, untwisted McKay's jacket collar, and shoved his shirt tail into his belt.

"You look like crap," he added. McKay looked taken aback for a moment.

"Well not a lot of sleep, really. Actually, yes! I mean I was asleep when I figured it out. I had this weird dream where Sheppard was in the rowboat and -."

"Jees, McKay!" Lorne interrupted with exaggerated horror, but Ronon could see a grin at the corner of his mouth. "No one wants to hear your dream. Can you get to the point?"

"The point? I already told you the point. I found the solar flare that affected the wormhole from M4S-587 the day Sheppard went missing."

Sam stood up with a lurch, shoving her chair back against the wall behind her as Ronon and Lorne stepped close to peer at McKay in tense excitement.

"McKay are you saying -?"

"I know where Sheppard is."

Ronon almost cheered and was mentally out the door and to the Stargate when he realized something was wrong. McKay's answer had been hesitant. Ronon threw a puzzled look to Carter who was scrutinizing McKay with ferocious intensity.

"Solar flare?" she said, as if the phrase explained everything. "McKay, you're saying Sheppard got thrown to the past?"

Ronon was startled. "…what?" McKay ignored him.

"No, Sam, not the past. The future. I haven't finished the calculations yet, but I think that when Sheppard stepped into the wormhole on 587, he was sent to Atlantis in the future."

McKay looked nervously at Lorne and Ronon who were both glancing at the Stargate through the window as if they expected to see Sheppard pop home at any minute. The future didn't sound too bad to Ronon. Worst case, Sheppard had missed the fun on Notita. But they had managed without him, and picked up their best lead on Teyla in weeks.

"He's not going to show up, Ronon," McKay said softly and Ronon turned back. "He's in the future. Way…in the future."

Ronon didn't understand, but he felt the news like a lead fist to his gut. He held McKay's eyes, looking, needing something to give him hope. He saw only quiet despair.

"We won't see him again. Ever."

* * *

**Day 64**

Ronon was sitting by himself in the commissary, staring over a full plate of eggs and bacon. Lately he'd taken to sitting with Anderson and the other pilots at breakfast, enjoying their youth and enthusiasm. In fact, the noisy crowd was still gathered at a large jumble of tables across the room, but Ronon didn't feel like joining them. Not today.

A clank of silver and ceramic pulled him out of his stupor and he looked up. McKay reached the table and stood for a moment at the chair beside Ronon, then slowly walked around to set his plate in front of him instead. He sat down and settled his dishes without looking at Ronon at all. Ronon went back to staring at his food.

"You, ah - Did you hear?" McKay asked finally. Neither had taken a bite.

"Yeah. I heard."

"KIA," McKay breathed. He suddenly leaned forward, holding his fork and knife in clenched fists. "It's ridiculous. He's not dead. He's in the future. For all we know, Atlantis is populated by beautiful Amazon women in the future and Sheppard is living it up like Buck Rogers meets Sex and the City."

Ronon almost chuckled. That was a nice way to remember Sheppard. But he couldn't bring himself to feel that Sheppard wasn't dead. He knew why the Air Force had made the decision to declare Sheppard Killed in Action: So that the living could move on. To think of Sheppard as alive was a lie. Denial. He was gone, beyond reach. That was dead as far as he understood.

Ronon would grieve – grieve like he'd never grieved before for the loss of not one, but two dear friends within the same month – and then he would move on.

When he looked up again, McKay was staring at him, anger just barely restrained beneath the surface.

"He's not dead," he repeated again.

Ronon shrugged. "You going to the funeral on Earth?" he asked.

McKay frowned, looked at his food, shoved a large forkful of eggs into his mouth.

"Of course."

* * *

**Day 71**

It was spring in the Arlington National Cemetery. Cherry blossoms burst over the trees like scented fireworks and the morning sunshine beat down on their heads with sleepy warmth. It was quite beautiful, Rodney thought.

He stood next to Ronon at the graveside, a few feet away from a large silver coffin that hung balanced over torn earth. The edges of the flag that was draped over the coffin flapped in the spring breeze, snapping in little rhythms of sound that almost drowned out the drone of an Air Force clergy's eulogy on the other side of the grave.

The clergy spoke to a small family group. John's brother - Doug, or Dave or something - a woman friend he'd brought with him, and John's ex-wife, Nancy sat somberly in the reserved seats. Rodney had never met any of them and Ronon had only met them briefly during Patrick Sheppard's wake.

"Do they know it's empty?" Rodney asked softly enough so as not to interrupt the minister.

"I don't know, but I don't think so. Carter said they'd only been told that details were classified."

"It's weird. Knowing he's not in there, I mean."

"Yeah."

Rodney fidgeted. Despite Ronon's continued admonition to let it go and grieve for John as if he were dead, Rodney couldn't do it. John was alive. In the future. He just wouldn't get to see him again. Like many colleagues in Rodney's life that had gone on different paths. Like his cat.

"Lots of people, here," Ronon said, just as softly. Rodney looked around again. The family group was small, but there were many friends gathered behind them. Most were in uniform, friends and colleagues who had served with John during his 22 years in the Air Force.

In one case, it was the parents of a friend who stood to pay their respects. They'd introduced themselves to Rodney before the ceremony, and told them that their son, Lyle, had died as John tried to rescue him in Afghanistan. They were eager to tell anyone who would listen how grateful they were for his attempt, even though the act had brought a black mark down on his record.

"His brother looks pissed," Ronon added. Dave did indeed look a bit sour as he sat stiffly in the chair beside the coffin. His girlfriend kept shooting him annoyed looks.

"I heard he wanted John to be buried at some family cemetery. John's will requested Arlington. Landry shouted it out, though."

"I'm glad. He deserves this." Ronon was looking at the full military salute the Air Force had arranged. A medal of honor was carved into the headstone at the coffin's head.

"He's not here," Rodney hissed back testily.

They had to stop whispering as the clergy finished up and taps began to play its mournful tune, interrupted only by the violent explosions of the 21 gun salute. When the echoes died away, a single soldier approached the coffin and began folding the flag with crisp, formal pageantry.

"I'm leaving Atlantis," Ronon said. Rodney turned to stare at him. "When we get back."

"I…don't know what to say," Rodney whispered. Ronon suddenly smiled.

"You were right. I need to try to find a way to make a difference. Will you help me talk Carter into letting me build an offworld militia? There's a lot of scared people out there who want to fight Michael. You were right about that, too. Atlantis needs all the help it can get."

"I'll do what I can," Rodney promised.

The soldier handed the striped triangle to John's brother, who finally looked just a little bit sad as he accepted it.

Rodney felt his own eyes sting. He wasn't Sheppard who had been able find optimism in the mere fact of his own continued existence. Rodney needed an anchor to hang his hope upon, or the world got bleak and dreary, pretty quickly.

Sheppard wasn't dead. He wasn't here. But things were looking awfully bleak.

* * *

**Day 180**

"How many more of our own people have to die, Doctor? Colonel Sheppard, Colonel Carter, Ronon, Teyla – they were your friends."

"Sheppard's not dead!" Rodney spat at Woolsey, furious at the man's smug calm.

"Right. He's just been transported forty eight thousand years into the future. I guess that makes him one of the lucky ones."

Woolsey turned and walked away without another look back and Rodney found himself clenching his fists. Jennifer started to speak to him, but he whirled and stalked out of the infirmary. His feet carried him without direction until he realized he was standing in the jumper bay, looking into the open hatch towards the cockpit.

Sheppard had been gone 6 months and Rodney still felt a twinge every time he walked into a jumper. They were Sheppard's ships, as far as Rodney was concerned. John had been the first the fly them; Rodney himself had led then newly-in-charge Major Sheppard to the bay. John flew them the best. Somehow, they represented his friend better than any photo or gravestone ever could. They were compact, useful, even a little bit funny looking. But inside the little craft was some of the smartest equipment the Ancients had ever designed.

And they were built to explore.

He sat for a long time on the back bench, thinking. Ronon had asked him once if he would ever leave Atlantis. At the time, Rodney couldn't imagine it. But things had changed. He wasn't making a difference here anymore. Not the kind he wanted to make. Sheppard had taught him what that meant. Ronon had made him see it. But they weren't here.

He resigned the next day.

* * *

**Day 9400**

Rodney sat on the steps of Atlanis looking down at the quiet Stargate, feeling his age in every joint and wrinkle on his body. A pile of gear sat on the floor in front of the beautiful ring. He would go home soon.

The technicians he'd brought with him were ready. They complained about the boring assignment and how spooky the city was when it was night. Spooky and empty. The SGC didn't come back to Atlantis very often anymore, but that was for the better. The fewer people here to mess with his adaptations, the more likely they would survive. For 48,000 years.

Sheppard wasn't dead. And Rodney would be here to meet him when he arrived. Sort of.

He sighed and stretched. He was done. Finished. He would never know if he'd made a difference, but he'd found something to hang his hope upon. And it was enough.

* * *

**Day 17,520,000**

"This is Sheppard. Anyone on this frequency?"

"Sheppard? Is that really you?"

"McKay!"

"I can't believe it! It actually worked!"


	12. Day 12

**Day 12**

"Receiving I.D.C. It's Colonel Sheppard!"

"Lower the shield. Security!"

Rodney followed Sam down the stairs in a daze. He'd gotten back from Notitia the night before where he'd done his best to keep himself from thinking about Sheppard and Teyla. He'd worked flat out for three solid days and came back so tired, he even found himself able to sleep last night without the rowboat.

He stopped at the foot of the stairs as the puddle rippled and Sheppard ran through. He skidded to a halt, and then froze, raising his hands as guns creaked and fingers twitched on the rifles surrounding them. Sheppard looked filthy. His uniform was wrinkled and covered in dust.

"John!" Carter spoke first.

"Colonel," Sheppard answered looking around, checking them out the same way they were checking him out. "It worked. It worked! Rodney you're a genius!"

"Ok," Rodney answered. He didn't know what to think or feel. It was at that very moment that he realized he had given up. He'd actually given up hope that Sheppard would return. He'd been gone too long, they had no clues. To see him, instead, standing before them and chatting with Carter with painfully familiar intensity was almost – unbelievable.

"Look, I know this sounds kinda weird, but we're on the clock," Sheppard was saying.

"John, what are you talking about?"

"I know where Teyla is."

* * *

Sheppard was wolfing down a plateful of food in the commissary, two burly guards standing over him, when Rodney and Ronon entered together to stand at the table. Sheppard looked up briefly, waved a forkful of food in greeting, then grabbed for a glass of water to wash his last bite down.

"Hi," he said around his next bite. "You all OK?"

Ronon's smiled brightened the whole room, and he slapped Sheppard on the arm before turning a chair around to straddle the back and plop into it. He rested his hands and chin on the backrest and just stared at Sheppard, still grinning. Sheppard grinned back.

Rodney hovered at the chair directly across from John, wrinkling his nose in distaste.

"You smell like you were camping in the desert without the benefit of personal hygienic precautions. You couldn't take a shower first?"

Sheppard shook his head violently. "Wasn't camping. Hiking. In a sandstorm. And I'm hungry. Didn't have anything to eat the whole time."

Ronon raised a skeptical eyebrow.

"You didn't eat for twelve days?"

Rodney chuffed and finally sat down, leaning back in his chair.

"If he really was in the future like he says, then just because he was gone from here for twelve days doesn't mean it was the same amount of time for him. He could have been there for an hour or 100 days."

"463 years, actually," Sheppard said, sounding a bit disturbed. He jabbed the fork at Rodney, "You told me it had been 463 years just before you sent me through. Didn't take as long as we thought to find a return solar flare."

Rodney just stared, tapping his fingers on his arm for a long minute. Then he turned to Ronon and muttered out of the side of his mouth as if he didn't want Sheppard to hear, "I think we need to have Keller do a psychological evaluation, too." But Sheppard just laughed.

"It will all make sense after I explain everything. Carter said debriefing is in an hour. After Keller plays vampire and checks me out. Then we can go get Teyla."

"You really know where she is?" Ronon was suddenly intense. Sheppard shrugged.

"Rodney knew. The future Rodney. He gave me this." John tugged an Ancient crystal out of his pocket and handed it to Rodney. "You can get started on downloading all the info while you wait for me to take a shower."

Rodney took it, then just held it limply. For a long moment, Ronon and Rodney just watched Sheppard finish up and start to pile up his trash onto his tray. Before he stood to leave, he gave them a puzzled smile.

"What's up?"

They looked at each other and both knew what the other was thinking. Something had changed. Some cloud had been lifted, or some shadow had been chased away. Carter might still need proof of Sheppard's story, but neither Rodney nor Ronon did. It didn't even matter. He was back. He was here. He'd even brought Teyla's salvation with him. It was as if hope itself had started breathing again within Atlantis.

"We're just…glad to see you," Rodney stammered awkwardly.

"Awww. You missed me!" Sheppard gloated.

Another looked was passed. Ronon rolled his eyes as if thinking about it.

"Not really. McKay took out three of Michael's bug monsters and three hybrids in one day while you were gone. By himself."

"Actually, Corrigan helped me get the first one. And it was four hybrids."

"Three, McKay."

"Five maybe. Anyway, Ronon got your team." Sheppard looked alarmed. "He replaced you with Anderson," Rodney added, twisting the knife a bit.

"McKay killed bugs. By himself. And Ronon stole my team?"

"Five bugs. And 7 hybrids," Rodney said.

"I didn't steal it. Carter gave me the team," Ronon said.

Sheppard slouched and looked from one to the other. His expression turned suspicious. "You're yanking my chain." He wagged a finger at both of them. "You missed me, and you won't admit it. But it's OK. I'm back now, so you don't have to exaggerate anymore to get attention. One more stop and we'll get Teyla back too."

He stood up, piled his glass on top of the trash on his tray and winked at his escorts. Ronon and Rodney just watched, feeling contentment sink into their shoulders, releasing a tension they hadn't acknowledged until it was gone. John paused before leaving the room and his expression was serious again.

"Start getting your gear ready. I want to leave the second we're done debriefing. Tell Lorne. He gets to go. He needs to be there when we get her."

Ronon nodded, guiltily pleased with the notion of getting to sit back and listen to orders instead of making them. Satisfied at last, Sheppard waved and headed towards the infirmary, slapping dust off his shirt as he went.

"I told you we'd find him," Ronon said, smirking at Rodney.

"Technically, we didn't. He found us. Again."

"You think he really was in the future?"

"Carter wants me to confirm it, but…Yeah. I think it's possible. Likely even. What I didn't get was that part about a future Rodney and being there for 463 years."

"He said he'd explain."

"I suppose. Are you going to miss leading a team now that Sheppard's back?"

"Hell, no."

"You think we'll really find Teyla?"

"Now that Sheppard's back? Hell, yeah."

Ronon stood up, stretched, then cocked his head at Rodney. "I should have said something before, but… You did good with those bugs, McKay."

"Might turn out to have been good practice for where we're going," Rodney answered with a grimace.

"Probably. But I'm not worried. Michael isn't expecting us. We've got information from the future to help us out. We've got Sheppard. Michael doesn't have a chance."

"We'll get her back."

"We'll get her back."

And this time, they both believed it.

* * *

The locker room was crowded and bustling as the three teams hastily prepared for the assault on Michael's hideout. Rodney watched Sheppard move through the room, hustling his men, checking the gear and making a nuisance of himself in general. After the tension of new roles and new commands for the past twelve days, the chaos was simply…perfect.

Rodney turned back to the table and his task at hand. A tactical vest lay in front of him, sprawled next to his backpack that he'd already packed. Several items were already in the pockets, left from previous missions and routinely restocked each time a vest was turned in. At least Rodney thought it was routine. Maybe Sheppard did that part too.

He dug through a few pockets to see what was there, but he had no idea what to add next. He'd forgotten to look up an inventory or something, and honestly, he'd forgotten he wanted to pack it himself until Sheppard had told them to start getting ready. He remembered using the extra P-90 clip on the stairwell, so he walked over to the table where their weapons were laid out and grabbed a cartridge.

Then he stood over the vest again, trying to remember where the thing went. It looked different on the table. Maybe if he put the jacket on, he'd recognize the pocket by feel. As he was standing and considering, the cartridge was suddenly yanked out of his hand. Sheppard snatched for the vest, too, and began shoving things from the table and the supply bins into flaps and pockets with competent speed. He shoved the packed vest into Rodney's arms, patted him on the chest, and wandered away again.

So, maybe he would let Sheppard pack his vest after all, Rodney thought as he shrugged it on. He belatedly remembered he was planning to say a thank you as well, but Sheppard was already across the room, speaking intently with Lorne.

Once he was kitted up, Rodney wandered over to Ronon who was also finished and was also watching Sheppard work the room.

"Back to normal, eh?" Rodney asked and Ronon grinned.

"Yeah."

They waited for a few more minutes, then stiffened in readiness as Sheppard began to bellow the group out of the room and towards the Stargate. They entered the line at the door and Rodney shifted uncomfortably under the heavy vest, wiggling the P-90 on its hook.

"You ready, McKay?" Sheppard hollered from up in the line, and Rodney rolled his eyes as he realized that the man had been watching him for readiness – checking him out like a new recruit.

"No!" he yelled back. Rodney didn't think he'd ever truly get used to the fighting thing. That was for men like Sheppard and Ronon.

"You did fine against the bugs, McKay. You'll do fine again," Ronon was beside him, offering encouragement, and a hint of respect that Rodney had never seen there before.

"Yes, I did do great, didn't I! Took out a whole complex of bugs by myself while you sat around and shot at control panels. How could this be any worse?"

"That's the spirit, McKay," Ronon said, but he sounded like he wasn't so sure encouraging him had been a good thing after all.

The crowd began to clear out and they moved forward. Sheppard, it turned out, was hanging back, waiting for them, and they walked together in a determined line down the hall towards the gateroom. Rodney had no doubt that their team would be complete again shortly. He'd liked Corrigan and Anderson, but… they weren't his team. Not really.

"Looking forward to this?" Sheppard asked Ronon.

"I just hope I find Michael's neck to wrap my hands around," Ronon answered in reply.

"I'll be happy enough to find just Teyla," Rodney said, unable to keep from worrying a little bit.

"Don't worry. We'll find her. We've got the edge," Sheppard said cheerfully.

"We've got the team," Ronon added, voicing a new appreciation for the people under Sheppard's command.

"Right." Rodney squared his shoulders and lined up on the deck before the Stargate. "We've had enough bad luck. It's our turn to kick some."

"Absolutely," Sheppard agreed.

"What could possibly go wrong?"

The End

* * *

_Author's Note: Enjoy Search and Rescue this evening! I'll be eating blueberry pie and drooling over the Tivo button. Thank you all for helping me survive the last twelve days with an amusing distraction. I have to admit, that the hardest part was keeping Rodney from figuring out the solar flare too soon. Canon had him missing the clues until Sheppard got back, so I decided he just must have been really busy doing other things. Thanks again!_


End file.
